


Human Interest Story

by angrysilverdeer



Category: American Football RPF, College Football RPF, Glee, National Football League RPF
Genre: 2017 Draft, Alternate Universe, American Football, Best Friends, Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Closeted Character, College Football, Coming Out, Established Relationship, Florida State University Seminoles Football, Friends to Lovers, Gossip, Growing Up Together, High School Football, M/M, NFL Draft, No Glee Club, Openly Gay Athlete, Out With A Bang Big Bang, Outsports, Peewee Football, Rumors, TMZ, University of Louisville Cardinals Football, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 04:10:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 55,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4290306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrysilverdeer/pseuds/angrysilverdeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From Pop Warner to pro, Finn and Puck have been their own all-star team of two. Their lifelong friendship and good-natured professional rivalry captures the cameras of the nation’s sports journalists, but behind the lens, they’re two small town boys trying to balance their love for the game and each other. The countdown to the Super Bowl brings more media attention and more scrutiny, forcing them both to confront the most important decision in their careers: would they rather be MVPs or themselves?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Graphics by Mapgirl. [Fanmix](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4238214) by pterawaters.

  


  


Puck jolts awake with the alarm despite the earlier than usual wake-up time. His mind is clear, not confused like he thought it might be. “Finn,” he says out loud, not even trying to whisper. “Finn, wake up. Coach McGee’ll be here in thirty minutes!”

“No,” Finn says, pulling the pillow over his head.

“Combine, remember?” Puck says. “I’ll make coffee.” 

“Ten more minutes.”

“Five.” Puck gets out of bed and, true to his word, starts the coffee before getting dressed. Puck already has his in his Louisville travel mug before he goes back into the bedroom. “Finn. You gotta get up now.” 

Finn grumbles and pulls the pillow down around his ears. “Five more minutes.”

“Yeah, you had five minutes,” Puck says. “Now it’s coffee time. And clothes time.” 

“This was a dumb idea. We should quit football and get night jobs.”

“You’ve been saying that for years now. C’mon. _Combine_. And a free hotel stay!” Puck says with possibly more enthusiasm than warranted. 

Finn sighs loudly as he sits up, rubbing his face with both hands. The pillow tumbles from Finn’s head onto the bed. “But if we worked night jobs, we could sleep until two every afternoon,” he says. “We’d never have to wake up early.”

“You complained about waking up when we were on spring break last year, Finn,” Puck says. “And that was at _least_ two pm every day.” 

“Well, I don’t like the whole _idea_ of waking up,” Finn says.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Puck says, wandering back out of the bedroom as soon as Finn stands up, fixing Finn’s coffee and double-checking their bags. They head outside about five minutes before Coach McGee pulls up in the athletic department van, and Coach is a little too peppy even for Puck, who, unlike Finn, is at least a morning person. The ride to the airport is just long enough to get comfortable, and then they stand around and wait before their thirty minute flight to Chicago. Finn sleeps on that flight, his head against Puck’s shoulder and his mouth open as he snores. The flight attendant looks disapprovingly at them twice, like Puck should make Finn move, but Puck ignores her. 

They have three hours to kill in Chicago, and as soon as they disembark, Finn heads straight to the airport bookstore, where he buys yet another one of his trashy dramatized real-life natural disaster stories. This one is _Thundersnow_ , and Puck just rolls his eyes. 

“You know, when we get on the plane, we need to go over plays,” Puck says, an hour into their layover. 

“But I’ve got my book,” Finn says. “I need to find out if the mom and her kids stuck in the car in the blizzard are gonna get struck by lightning or not.”

“Dude. You know there are going to be reporters as soon as we get off the plane in Indy, and then that’s going to be their headline: ‘First Gay Quarterback Reads _Thundersnow_ ’.”

“They’re making it into a movie. They’re showing it on the Weather Channel. I think they’re getting that guy who used to be in the werewolf show on MTV to play Jim Cantore,” Finn says. 

“The kid from _Maid in Manhattan_?” Puck asks, and he’s probably a little too interested. 

“Nah, nah, the one with the beard and the tiny ears.”

“With the funny last name, yeah. Huh.” Puck sits for a second and then shakes his head. “No, stop distracting me! You have to go over plays.” 

“Fine,” Finn sigh, “but I’m reading my book until it’s time to board.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I love you, too,” Puck says, grinning and shaking his head again. Finn reads his book until the moment they step onto the plane, including while they’re in line with their boarding passes. Once they’re seated, though, Puck pulls out the playbook that Finn got at the Manning Passing Academy. “Ready?” 

“Just one more chapter?”

“No,” Puck says, grabbing the book and dog-earring the page before closing it and shoving it in his own carry-on, all while staring at Finn. 

“You could’ve just said no,” Finn says. 

“I did!” Puck says. 

“Yeah, but then you did the book-snatching thing,” Finn says. “Was that really necessary?”

“You actually like the book-snatching thing. Be glad we’re talking plays and not press conference questions,” Puck says. 

“You already made me practice that part, anyway,” Finn says. 

“I liked your answer about me, even if you probably shouldn’t use it in front of cameras,” Puck says. 

“It was one-hundred-percent true,” Finn says. “I don’t lie on camera. It’s a bad idea.”

“We’ll just hope they don’t ask you about your ‘love life’ and ‘romantic prospects’ then,” Puck says. 

“I can tell them I don’t really have a lot of prospects. That’s true, too.”

“Good thing,” Puck grumbles. 

“You’re making the face again.”

“You like my face usually!” 

“Yeah,” Finn agrees. “Anyway, I don’t need prospects. I’ve got a sure thing.”

“Yeah, you do.” Puck nudges Finn’s shoulder and covers the bottom half of the page with his hand. “Now tell me what you do when you’re already lined up like this, and the defense moves into that formation.” 

“Lie down on the turf and cry?”

“I’m going to laugh if they screw up and let me take some of your throws,” Puck says. “I mean, there’s no rule against it, but it would give us an unfair advantage.” 

They go over plays for the rest of the flight, and Puck is right about the airport: both NFL Network and ESPN have camera crews on-site, and they yell out a few questions even though no one going to the combine is supposed to answer any questions yet. Finn does a parade float wave in their direction, which makes Puck crack up laughing. 

Supposedly because there’s an uneven number of quarterbacks and an uneven number of running backs, Puck and Finn are told they’re sharing a room. Puck doesn’t call the organizers out on the other reason that he’s sure they are doing that. Finn’s been out for over a year, and Puck’s the supposedly straight, supportive best friend, and the best way to make sure there’s no negative press at the Combine is to put the best-friends-since-peewee together. 

After their bags are in the room, though, they get split up for Cybex mobility testing and orientation and the first of the interviews with the teams. Puck talks to the entirety of the AFC West and most of the AFC South, which tells him that he’s probably not going to any of those teams. After the specially catered NFL prospects dinner, Puck endures two more interviews, with two more teams that he doesn’t think really need running backs, and then heads back to the hotel room. 

Finn isn’t there, so Puck closes the curtains and throws their luggage on one bed, taking a shower before realizing they might go swimming. He shrugs and turns on the television, going through the available movie listings, and after another twenty minutes or so, he hears Finn’s keycard in the lock. It takes four times before Finn gets the door open, but he still looks cheerful as he finally opens the door. 

“Are your joints mobile?” Puck asks jokingly. 

“Oh yeah,” Finn says. “Super mobile.”

“Who’d you interview with today?” 

“The Vikings, the Chargers, the Texans, and the Browns. I think the Browns might be thinking about taking both of us!” Finn says. 

“Yeah?” Puck asks, sitting up and turning down the volume on the television. “You wanna play second string to Johnny Football?” 

Finn shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing ever, would it? Especially if both of us were there. You’d probably get some actual field time.”

“And we wouldn’t be moving halfway across the country, either,” Puck says. “You think any other team would be willing to take both of us? Cincy, maybe, but they’re steady drafters, and they like Dalton at QB.” 

“Anybody say anything to you today? Maybe somebody’ll take me ’cause they really want you.”

“The AFC West doesn’t really want a running back period, but they were good warm-ups for the other interviews.” Puck shrugs. “You wanna go swim?” 

“Sure. Were my shorts in my suitcase or yours?” Finn asks. 

“I think we put the workout stuff in mine and the street clothes in yours,” Puck says. “Maybe we’ll run into Lacy and he can tell us about his interviews.” 

“Cool,” Finn says. 

They do run into Lacy, but he doesn’t have a lot that’s helpful, since the AFC West seemed to love him and be jonesing for a good offensive lineman. Thursday is at first a blur of mostly-boring things: official weigh-in, going over medical records and a relatively cursory physical exam, and then a few more interviews, all before their assigned media times come up. Most of the quarterback media attention is on Goff out of Cal, and most of the running back media attention is on Clement out of Wisconsin, but thanks to Finn being out and the two of them playing together for seventeen years, they’re the only two who do a joint media time. 

Most of the questions are about the actual game of football: their schedule, favorite and least-favorite parts of practice and working out, studying the playbook. Then they move to what Puck thinks of as the touchy-feely stuff. One of them leads off by asking Finn for at least the six hundredth time how life has changed since coming out. “What was the most unexpected part about coming out?” 

Finn’s obviously barely resisting the urge to the laugh at the question when he answers, “The fact that it’s been almost a year and a half, and you guys are still asking me questions like that.”

“Have any teams brought it up with you during the interviews?” another reporter asks. 

“Now, you know they’re not supposed to ask personal questions like that,” Finn says. “You’re not trying to get somebody in trouble, are you?”

Puck doesn’t bother trying not to laugh at that, and the reporters must realize they aren’t getting any juicy queer scoop, because they move on to their other favorite topic. “How about the two of you? The chances of being on the same team have to be slim.” 

“We’re here to play football,” Puck says. “Of course it’d be incredible to keep wearing the same uniform, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the teams.” 

“Do the two of you compete with each other?” one of the reporters asks. 

Puck turns in her direction and grins. “Look at our numbers on Saturday and then ask that question. Finn’s got an advantage when it comes to broad jump, though.” 

“I also totally kick his butt at _Madden 16_ ,” Finn adds. 

“Hey, that’s supposed to be a dorm-level secret!” 

Finn laughs and shakes his head. “If I don’t answer at least _one_ of these questions, they’re just gonna publish that I’m cagey and mysterious!”

The entire room laughs at that, and after a few follow-ups to clarify some of their earlier answers, they’re finally done for the day. 

“Wonderlic tomorrow,” Puck says once they’re on the elevator up to the room. “And my best event.” 

“You’re probably gonna kick my ass on the Wonderlic. You know I’m not fast on tests,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, but you read a lot more than I do. The real question is, are you gonna do the bench press at all?” 

“If I don’t, will you spend the rest of the Combine telling reporters it’s because I’ve got T-rex arms?”

“That way you can get a cool cartoon drawn of you for SI or something,” Puck says. “T-Rex and Puckasaurus.” 

“And we could both get it as matching tattoos,” Finn says. “That would be cool.”

Puck grins. “How could the Browns turn us down?” 

The Wonderlic is both easier and harder than Puck expects, and he does have the top number of reps for bench press out of all thirty-one running backs. After the NFLPA meeting, which mostly seems to be about how they should contact their union rep about almost everything, Puck shuffles to more interviews, including one with the Browns, finally. 

After the questions that Puck now recognizes as standard, the Browns representative brings up Finn. 

“So, in your entire career, you’ve never played with another quarterback, is that correct?”

“Nah, Finn had the flu senior year of high school and our second-stringer stepped in for two weeks. No point in making Finn get a secondary infection for Central Catholic, right?” 

“You’re probably got a point there,” the Browns rep concedes. “But do you think you’re prepared for playing more than two weeks with another quarterback?”

“That’s the point of taking reps in camp and practice,” Puck says. “Getting to know the way someone throws, how many steps they take, how big their stride is, the way they wrap their hand around the ball for a hand-off.”

The Browns rep looks a little startled or surprised by Puck’s answer, but he nods. Luckily, the Browns guy doesn’t ask what it’s like to be the ‘straight best friend’, which is a point in their favor, as well as for the other seven teams that did not ask that question. Puck and Finn go to bed early on Friday night, and Puck wakes up before the alarm on Saturday morning, his face smushed against Finn’s back like it usually is. 

“On-field workouts today,” Puck mumbles, and predictably, Finn doesn’t move or otherwise respond. Puck gets up, showers, and starts the coffee before nudging Finn out of bed and into his own shower. The quarterbacks head over about an hour before the running backs, and by the time Puck is at Lucas Oil, Finn’s group is already running their 40s. Puck does his vertical jump and then walks over to Finn’s group, even though the provided workout clothes are completely different colors for each position group. 

“What’s your unofficial?” Puck asks. 

“4.68,” Finn says. 

“Does that mean I won the bet?” Puck says. 

“Yeah, but I don’t have any cash on me right now, so it’ll have to wait,” Finn says. 

“Or you could pay me other ways.” 

“Probably still has to wait,” Finn says, “unless you really want to give the reporters a good story.”

“Some time, but yeah, probably not today,” Puck concedes. “I got 38” on vertical, but you’re still gonna kick my ass on broad jump.” 

“There’s just more of me to fling,” Finn says.

“I’ve noticed. I get to go run routes now. Don’t say anything if you’re supposed to throw to me,” Puck says. 

“I won’t. I’ll just throw really good.”

“You’re supposed to throw really good anyway.” Puck snorts and nudges Finn’s shoulder with his before heading back over to the rest of the running backs. 

Puck feels like he should be trying to capture the experience of being at the Combine, or maybe somehow less nervous and more nervous at the same time, but they’ve been prepping only for the Combine for weeks, and really they’ve been working towards it for months on most of the things, years on things like the 40. 

Unsurprisingly, Finn hits 125” on the broad jump, which happens while the running backs are running shuttle, and Puck probably isn’t supposed to be paying attention to the quarterback group. He sees Finn peering over when the running backs head to do their 40s, and then Puck tunes everything out until after his second run. Finn whistles. When Puck turns to look at him, he starts clapping. 

“How fast?” Puck mouths. 

“Way fast!” Finn mouths back.

Puck snorts and starts asking around until he gets an unofficial time: 4.4 even, which is fast enough that he should get some notice, even being a running back from the ACC. Puck watches the quarterbacks throw to the wide receivers while the running backs take a break, then they all stretch out for the final part of the Combine. They fly out almost as soon as they’re done, and while some of the guys have Pro Days in just a week or two, at least Puck and Finn and the rest of Louisville have a month before theirs. 

Finn’s throws look great, but the best part is Finn does end up tossing one to Puck before someone catches on and swaps Finn out. Both of them do well enough that Puck’s sure the Combine helped them, and they’re pretty worn out as they grab their luggage and head to the airport to head back to Louisville. 

“Now you can finish _Thundersnow_ ,” Puck says. “And I won’t bug you about Pro Day until Monday morning.” 

“You can read it when I’m done,” Finn offers. 

“I’ll wait for the movie. Or you can tell me about it,” Puck says. “Or you can find a recording of thundersnow to motivate your workouts.” 

“Yeah, that would be awesome!”

Puck laughs. “You can be the biggest dork sometimes.” 

“Only sometimes?” Finn asks. 

“Did you want to be the biggest dork all of the time?”

“I like to be the best at stuff,” Finn says. 

“You’re the best, I promise,” Puck says. “And tonight or tomorrow night, you can be the best at paying up.” 

“I’m pretty good at paying up, but I’m not sure I’m the best.”

“Are you doubting me?” Puck asks. 

“No, I’m just saying that I don’t know for sure I’m the best at that,” Finn says. “I mean, how am I supposed to know for sure? I probably need somebody to compare myself to.”

“Who are you going to compare yourself to?” Puck asks, frowning at Finn. 

“You. Duh.”

“We could have a contest when we get back?” Puck suggests. 

“Yeah, sounds good,” Finn says. 

Puck nudges his shoulder against Finn’s, and this time, he’s the one that falls asleep on the flight. They land in Louisville around 9:30 at night, and Coach McGee drives them back to the dorm in the exact same van. They do manage to empty out their bags and throw the laundry in the direction of the rest of their dirty laundry, but they fall asleep fast, and it’s Sunday night before they actually end up in bed while they’re still awake. 

“Back to work tomorrow?” Puck asks. 

“Yeah. Combine was fun, but I’m ready to get back to normal. Or, normal- _ish_ , I guess,” Finn says. 

“So we should have a little fun tonight?” Puck asks, turning over and running his hand through Finn’s hair before kissing him. Finn rolls on top of Puck and kisses him hard.

“Only a little?” Finn asks. “Not a lot?”

“Are you sure you’re not worn out?” Puck says, grinning up at Finn. 

“Oh, I was just gonna lie here and have you do all the work while I go over plays in my head,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “Just like on the field, huh?” 

“Hey!” Finn says, giving Puck a mock-punch to the arm. “Buttface!”

“Yeah, you love my buttface,” Puck says. He puts his arms around Finn and pulls him down. 

“Gonna _smoosh_ your buttface,” Finn says, pressing his nose against Puck’s. 

Puck tilts his head up enough to push back against Finn’s face, and he moves his hands to Finn’s neck. “Lot of talk. Where’s your follow-through?” 

“I have follow-through!” Finn insists. 

“Show me. I might like it.” 

“Show you how I smoosh your buttface?” Finn asks. “Okay. If you say so.” He puts his hands on either side of Puck’s face, squishing his cheeks.

“Are you ever going to get tired of that?” Puck asks, most of it coming out garbled. 

“Noooooo. I love your squishy squooshy buttface.”

“You’re the buttface,” Puck says. 

“Oh yeah?” Finn asks, kissing Puck’s lips without letting go of his cheeks. 

“Yeah, pair of us,” Puck says, grabbing the sides of Finn’s head. Day to day, going to class or practice or working out, there’s no real reason for Puck to register his or Finn’s size. Finn’s always been taller than Puck, and it can feel like nothing’s changed for years. With Finn lying on top of him, though, Puck usually is reminded, the entire length of Finn against him and his shoulders spreading out, his hands giant on, in this case, Puck’s face. 

“Lords of the buttfaces,” Finn agrees. 

Puck grins as much as he can with Finn’s hands in place. “Best and only.”

They take the week after the Combine a little lighter on the field and in the weight room, but then they start ramping back up for their Pro Day. All thirty-two teams are supposed to be sending representatives, at a minimum, and at least three or four head coaches are planning to attend. Both Finn and Puck decide, two weeks out, just to run routes and catch or throw, since their numbers from the Combine are either solid or better than expected. 

NFL Network sets up early on the morning of the Pro Day, and Coach McGee waits until they’ve done their workouts to tell them which teams want more extensive interviews. The interviews are a little more technical, and the Browns and the Chargers actually surprise them by interviewing them together. 

Then the NFL Network crew asks them to sit down, post-shower, and answer a few questions that they can edit into a package for the _Path to the Draft_ show. “Sure, I guess,” Puck says, looking sideways at Finn before looking at the producer. “No questions about Finn being gay.” Finn nods his agreement.

“Oh, right, okay,” the producer says, looking startled, but she agrees, and as Puck walks with Finn towards the locker room, he looks over his shoulder long enough to see her scratch out a couple of lines on whatever is on her clipboard. 

There are a few individual questions for each of them, which is no surprise, and then some questions about their shared history and how well they work together. “Now, this one I’d like both of you to answer. Are you expected to be drafted by the same team?” 

“Anything can happen in the draft, right?” Puck says, a little flippantly. “People say we could go in the same round or subsequent rounds, so I guess it’s not impossible. Finn?” 

“Sure, it’d be _nice_ to go to the same team, you know?” Finn says. “Nothing much we could do about it either way, though, so mostly I’m just looking forward to the free jersey and hat.”

Puck wakes up the day after Pro Day feeling like everything’s anti-climactic. They’re not projected to go high enough in the draft that they’ll be flown in for individual workouts with teams, and all that’s left to do is maintain their workouts and wait for the draft. They’ll probably get some unofficial phone calls, but they won’t know until Friday, April 28, where they’ll be going, and there’s a chance it could be the next day. 

By mid-April, the Browns have all but guaranteed that they’re planning to take Puck and Finn, probably with a pair of third-round picks that are only separated by four other teams. It’s enough of a plan that they start talking where they could get an apartment in Cleveland. They do turn down the local news stations’ requests to have a camera crew at their dorm during the draft, because they’ve managed over the years to keep their dorm, at least, pretty private. 

The first night of the draft is actually a lot of fun; they order pizza and wings and cheer really loudly when Lacy goes to the Chargers at seventeen. They work out longer than usual on Friday morning, because there’s nothing else to do until the draft starts back up, and then they order some Chinese food and settle in in front of the television with their phones fully charged. 

“Are you excited? ’Cause I’m excited,” Finn says. 

“It feels like we’re gonna wake up sooner or later. When’s the first time we talked about this? When we were seven? Watching the Rams and the Titans in the Super Bowl?” Puck shakes his head a little as he picks up a spring roll. “I guess we’ll know by midnight.” 

“I guess so,” Finn says, holding out a packet to Puck. “Soy sauce?”

“Thanks.” Puck takes the soy sauce and spreads it on his rice, and they watch the second round without any real expectations. The Forty-Niners take a defensive end from LSU to end it, and there’s not much fanfare as the third round begins. 

“You think we could get a dog or something, once we’re in Cleveland?” Finn asks. 

“After training camp, maybe. Like an older rescue dog?” Puck says. “That way we don’t have to teach it to go outside to poop.” 

“A big one, so it can go running with us.”

“Exactly. But one of the big gentle ones. A lab or a great dane or something,” Puck says. 

“Yeah, just like that,” Finn says. He props his feet up on the coffee table, in between the mostly-empty carton of rice and the stack of remotes, and puts his arm around Puck. 

Puck leans towards Finn. “Kinda like you, actually, so maybe a great dane.” 

“Yeah, that’s me. Big ol’ slobbery dog,” Finn says. 

“Big, gentle, and slobbery, anyway.” Picks sixty-five through seventy get announced, and then Finn’s phone starts to ring. “Get it,” Puck says, straightening slightly. “Browns have the seventy-seventh and eighty-first picks.” 

Finn puts his phone up to his ear. “Hello? Oh, yeah, this is him. Yeah. Uh-huh.” Finn points at the phone and mouths ‘Browns’. “Yeah? Okay, yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Oh, sure, yeah, I’ll tell him. Thanks! Thanks a lot!” He puts the phone down. “That was the Browns!”

“And?” Puck says, gesturing with his hands. 

“We should start looking for dog rescue places, ’cause we’re going to Cleveland!” 

“Awesome!” Puck says as he grins. “So is it age before beauty or vice versa?” 

“He said they were gonna pick you first, but then they heard that maybe the Broncos were gonna take me, so he says they’re picking me at seventy-seven, you at eighty-one. Cool?” Finn asks. 

“Ew, yeah, you don’t want to get stuck in Colorado,” Puck says with a nod. 

“Exactly!” Finn says. “So, anyway, I’m up, then you.”

“Cool.” The Browns do exactly that, taking Finn at seventy-seven, and even the commentators seem to have caught on to the Browns’ plan. Puck hears them talking about the Browns having another pick in just a matter of minutes, and because they’re saying Finn’s name and Puck’s name and a bunch of different teams, he doesn’t immediately register what’s happening, even as he’s listening. He goes back over it in his mind right now, and he feels himself go a little numb, completely confused. 

“With the eightieth pick of the 2017 NFL draft, the Carolina Panthers select Noah Puckerman.”


	2. Chapter 2

Finn Hudson threw his first touchdown pass at age six. It went three whole yards before Noah Puckerman caught it and ran it in. They’d been friends ever since. 

When they were ten, their team played in the championship game of the end-of-season tournament, and Puck caught the game-winning pass for a touchdown. He caught it facing Finn, and then he kept moving, like the momentum transferred from him to the ball. After his butt landed in the end zone, he scooted across the end zone before finally coming to a stop, and he raised the ball up even as he let his back hit the grass. Before the rest of his team could pile on top of him in celebration, Finn was already there, rolling Puck across the grass while they both whooped. 

At 11, they moved up to the next weight class together. Puck ran the fastest of the whole team, and Finn threw the farthest. Their team didn’t always win, but Finn and Puck always played well, as long as Finn was on one end of the pass and Puck was on the other. Finn thought, at 11, that it would always be like that.

Then Finn had a growth spurt the spring after their 11-year-old season, and the next season, the coaches decided Finn needed to move up to the next weight class, leaving Puck behind. Finn got so mad that he kicked a hole in the side of the concession stand. The coach called Carole to come early to pick Finn up. 

“I’ll make him come this weekend and repair the hole, of course,” Carole said to the coach. “He and Noah do need to be on the same team, however. Noah’s mother and I always carpool, and we need to continue doing that in order for either of them to play.” 

“Ma’am, your son’s just too big to stay on the team,” the coach explained. “It’s not fair to the other kids.”

“Then why not move Noah up along with him?” 

“All those other boys are much bigger than he is,” the coach said.

Finn couldn’t stand to hear them talking about Puck like that, so he piped up, “But Puck’s faster than them!”

“Is there a waiver his mother could sign?” Carole asked. 

The coach nodded his head slowly. “Well, there is, but we really do encourage parents to keep their sons on the correct weight team. We don’t want to be responsible for—”

“She’ll do it!” Finn said. “She’ll sign it. Mom, tell him that Mrs. Puckerman’ll sign it!”

Carole nodded and shot Finn a look that meant ‘be quiet’ before she turned back to the coach. “I’ll be sure Noah’s mother understands the risks, but surely you don’t want to lose two players?” 

“No, we definitely don’t want that. Your son’s got an awfully good arm, and the Puckerman boy _is_ one of the fastest,” the coach said.

“ _The_ fastest,” Finn whispered, loud enough that Carole and the coach could hear, but quiet enough that they could ignore it if they wanted. 

Carole glanced at Finn again, one eyebrow raised. “Well, then if you’ll let me take a copy of that waiver and the risk information to Noah’s mother, maybe the boys could run a few laps or throw a bit instead of scrimmaging today, until the paperwork is filed away?” 

The coach sighed like he knew he was beaten, and he nodded. “And you’ll bring him back to fix that hole?”

 

“First thing Saturday morning. Right, Finn?” 

“Sure,” Finn said, trying not to let Carole see him scowling at the coach. “Can I go tell Puck?”

“Yes, go tell him,” Carole said. 

“Thanks mom!” Finn darted off in the direction of the field, calling for Puck. Puck’s head shot up and he ran towards Finn despite one of the parent helpers who was yelling for Puck to come back. 

“What?” Puck asked. 

“You’re moving up with me!” Finn shouted. “We’re both moving up!”

Puck looked excited and then disbelieving. “Yeah? How?”

“’Cause I kicked a hole in the concession stand!”

“Awesome!” Puck looked over his shoulder and made a face at the other team. “Now?” 

Finn grinned at Puck. “Yeah. Right now.”

“Bye suckers!” Puck called out at the younger, smaller team, then looked expectantly at Finn. “Let’s go!” 

 

Middle school was a lot of waiting for the weekends and football season, and that’s what Puck did for most of middle school. He and Finn went to the McKinley games on Friday night, they played in their own games on Saturday morning, they watched OSU games on Saturday afternoon, and they watched the Browns on Sunday. When it wasn’t football season, they talked about football a lot, still, and they always practiced. That was sixth grade and that was seventh grade and it was eighth grade, too, and only a few things changed. By the middle of eighth grade, Puck started noticing things.

Puck noticed a lot of people. He noticed the way their necks looked when they laughed, tossing their heads back, and he noticed the way the girls’ shirts showed more or less of their sometimes small and sometimes large breasts. He noticed the way the boys had to reach down and adjust themselves, and he noticed some of them had a lot more to adjust than others. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip so many times in a day that he had to buy himself a stick of Chapstick, and even that only kept the cracks from bleeding. He bought himself tubes of KY too, smearing it on his palm before he jerked off, always thinking about the things he noticed.

Most of all, Puck noticed Finn. Of all the people that he noticed, Finn’s the one he most wanted to haul behind closed doors or push up against a wall. He touched Finn so often that he shouldn’t have wanted to touch him more, but he wanted to know what it would be like to put his hand on Finn’s face while they kiss or run his hand over Finn’s chest or shove his hand down Finn’s pants. He knew what he’d do, KY and his hand and Finn’s dick, and he’d jerk Finn off rough and fast. 

Puck already finished his tests before most people. He didn’t have the highest grades, but he got his tests done, especially in math class. Finn wasn’t in his English class, but they were in the same math and history classes, and Puck started finishing even faster. Once a test was turned in, the teachers didn’t care if someone looked around the room or even stared at one person, and everyone else was either still working on their test or fooling around after they turned their own test in. No one, not even the teachers, noticed that Puck finished his tests and then stared at Finn. 

He watched the way that Finn’s eyebrows and forehead scrunched as he worked on his test and how his mouth moved. Puck watched Finn’s eyelashes and the tiny shadows on Finn’s cheek and felt like he was a twenty-something year old woman in a romance novel or an evening soap instead of a fourteen year old eighth grade boy. Puck knew enough about the world in general and about Lima in particular that he wasn’t going to go announcing to anyone that he noticed boys in general, much less that he noticed one boy specifically more than the others. 

There was definitely no point in announcing it to Finn, especially not when Puck was pretty sure Finn wasn’t noticing anyone yet. Puck thought about maybe seeing if any of the girls he’d noticed were interested in anything, but usually he and Finn had standing plans on the weekends. He didn’t really want to talk to the girls, anyway. He wanted to maybe make out with them, and that’s it, and probably, he thought, that was something easier to do in high school. 

“We should skip the graduation party,” Puck said a couple of weeks before the end of the school year. There was an official end-of-eighth-grade party, and even though everyone said it sounded lame, everyone said they were going to go. Sometimes Puck liked when they went to parties, but most of the time he liked it _better_ when it was only the two of them. 

“Yeah? What’ll we do instead?” Finn asked. 

“I’ll sleepover at your place and your mom can order pizza _and_ wings and we can look at that recruiting thing we heard Coach talking about with the high school coach a few weeks ago. The website thing.” 

“You’re sure you don’t want to go to that party?” Finn said. “You can still sleep over after.”

“Do you want to go or something?” Puck asked. 

“Not really. I don’t really like parties that much.”

“Then we don’t need to go,” Puck said, his jaw clenching somewhat defiantly. 

Finn nodded. “Cool. I’m cool with not going.”

“Will your mom buy wings? We’ll have finished eighth grade.” 

“Yeah,” Finn said, still nodding. “We’ll tell her we need two or three different kinds.”

“Awesome!” Puck said, and Finn told his mom that before their eighth grade graduation. After they endured the graduation ceremony and a lot of pictures from their moms, and after they ate the pizza and wings, Puck sat down at Finn’s computer. “Do you remember what the site was called? Something about college recruiting.” 

“Uh. We can Google it, I guess,” Finn suggested. 

“Yeah, okay,” Puck said, and he typed in ‘college recruiting websites’. “Huh, there’s a lot of stuff! We should have done this for a research project instead of why Mentos and Diet Coke explode.” 

“Here. Let’s try this one. It sounds like they’ll make us into superheros,” Finn said, reaching across Puck for the mouse. He clicked on the CAPTAINU.com link. 

“It says we can sign up now,” Puck said. “But there’s nothing about superheroes. Do you think there’s a catch, like my mom talks about? Nothing’s free?” 

“Yeah, probably. Maybe we shouldn’t sign up for anything yet. Maybe we should talk to somebody first,” Finn said. He clicked the link for high schoolers, frowning when the page it pulled up listed three different levels of paid accounts. “Your mom’s right, I guess.”

“I don’t want to pay that much for a profile. We have Facebook profiles.” Puck clicked back twice and scrolled down the Google results. “This one says your name is in the web address!” 

“Cool. Does it cost?”

Puck clicked on the link, then on ‘Custom Website Features’ and scrolled down. “Yeah,” he said, sighing a little. “But our own highlight reels!” He clicked slowly on the ‘Subscribe Now’ button and winced. “Two hundred dollars!” 

“Crap,” Finn muttered. “That’s a lot.”

“Christmas or Hanukkah present, maybe,” Puck suggested. “C’mon, how awesome would FinnHudson.com be?” 

“Pretty cool. Do you think we could share a site? FinnandPuck.com would be cool, too.”

“I bet most people don’t do that.” Puck stopped and thought, then nodded. “I bet college coaches would remember us _more_ if we did that, right?” 

“Yeah, I bet they would. We’d be, like…” Finn’s forehead wrinkled up as he thought for a moment. “Like a package!”

“Yeah! So they’ll recruit both of us.” Puck grinned. “Good idea.” 

“That way, we’re both at the same school,” Finn said. 

Puck didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. “I don’t want to go to stupid college if we’re not playing together.” 

“Same,” Finn said. “I don’t want to go _anywhere_ without you. That would suck.”

“Yeah, and dumb, too. We’re like… two things that always go together. Ketchup and mustard or something.” 

“Marshmallows and hot chocolate. Pizza and wings.”

“Marshmallow!” Puck laughed. “You have to be the marshmallows.” 

“I don’t want to be the marshmallows,” Finn said. “I want to be the chocolate.”

“But my hair’s darker. And your skin is really pale.” 

“But I’m not squishy! Am I?” Finn poked himself in the stomach, frowning. 

Puck poked Finn’s leg. “Not your leg.” He knew he probably shouldn’t, but he poked Finn’s butt next. “Maybe a little bit your butt.” 

“Hey! My butt’s not squishy!”

“It’s not a _lot_ squishy,” Puck said, and he poked the other side of Finn’s butt. “Maybe we’re s’mores.” 

“So we’re both marshmallows _and_ chocolate?” Finn asked. “I can live with that. But my butt’s _not_ squishy.”

“Did you poke your own butt?”

“I don’t have to poke my own butt. I live with my own butt,” Finn said. He poked Puck in the side, and when Puck laughed, Finn poked him again. 

“It’s a little bit squishy,” Puck whispered between laughs. 

Finn’s face squished up into a scowl, then he suddenly tackled Puck off the chair and onto the floor. Puck yelped as his back hit the floor, then he grabbed Finn, too. Finn rolled them across the floor, laughing as he twisted Puck’s arm back and poked him in the side again.

“ _You’re_ squishy!” Finn yelled. 

“Squishy butt!” 

“Squishy gut!”

“Boys!” Carole suddenly said, and Puck froze. “Why are the two of you rolling around on the floor?” 

“We need a website!” Puck said. 

“Because I’m not a marshmallow!” Finn said. 

“Of course you’re not a marshmallow, Finn,” Carole said with a heavy sigh. “And why do you need a website? Don’t you both have those Facebook things?” 

“We need them for college, Mom,” Finn explained, not letting go of Puck’s arm or letting him up from the floor. “We need to get recruited together, so we can play football together forever.”

“A website for football?” 

“For our highlight reels!” Puck said. 

“Do you have highlight reels?” Carole asked. 

“We _will_ ,” Finn said. “Just wait. We’ll have so many highlights. Oh, can you start camcordering our games?”

“You’re going to have highlights because you want me to film you.” Carole sighed again. “Can we talk about the website when it’s closer to your season starting?” 

Finn sat up, hauling Puck up with him. “Well, I guess so, but it’s probably gonna cost some money, so maybe we should make a plan or something.”

“Why don’t the two of you mow some lawns to raise some of that money?” Carole asked. “Finn, you know neither Jennifer nor I have a lot of extra money to spend, even on college recruiting.” 

“We can mow lawns,” Finn said. “Right, Puck?”

“We could clean pools!” 

“Yeah, what Puck said,” Finn said.

“Then I suppose the two of you have more to research tomorrow,” Carole said, “but it’s time for the computer to turn off for tonight. Up to Finn’s room!” 

“We aren’t using the computer, Mom. We’re squishing each other,” Finn said. 

“Upstairs, Finn!” 

Puck wiggled away and grabbed Finn’s hand. “C’mon, we’ll sneak back down for more cookies,” he whispered. 

“Okaaaaaaaay,” Finn said, letting Puck pull him to his feet. “We’re going upstairs now, Mom!”

Carole shook her head. “Good night, boys!”


	3. Chapter 3

“I thought the washer and dryer were supposed to be here by two,” Finn complains. “Didn’t they tell you by two?”

“Yeah, but we’re not going anywhere,” Puck says with a shrug. 

“But I want everything in the apartment set up before you have to go to Charlotte,” Finn says. 

“Yeah. Fucking Charlotte. I have to figure out how not to get pissed at them before I have to go,” Puck says, flopping down on the new-to-them sofa they bought off Craigslist on Saturday. Finn sits down next to him, flinging his legs over Puck’s so they’re kind of tangled-up in a good way.

“Yeah,” Finn sighs. “That part sucks. I’m trying not to think that far ahead.”

“One slot,” Puck says for the fiftieth or so time. “One slot! Maybe I should play crappy so they want to trade me.” 

“Aww, but I want you to play really good so everybody knows how awesome you are.”

“Then I might cost too much for the Browns,” Puck says. “Like the washer and dryer almost did.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. He sighs again and slumps back on the sofa. “ _We_ were supposed to be like the washer and dryer.”

“Too expensive because there aren’t signed contracts yet?” 

“No! Well, yeah, a little bit that, but I meant that we were supposed to be a set. We were supposed to go together to the same place. Nobody just wants to buy a washer. You need both of them,” Finn says.

“I think a lone dryer is even more useless,” Puck says. “What are you supposed to dry if you don’t have a washer?” 

“See? That’s just like us!”

“One of us is dripping wet and the other is dehydrated?” Puck says, half-smiling. 

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Finn says. “Wait. You _do_ get what I meant, right? You’re just messing with me now?”

“Why would I do that?” Puck asks. 

“Uh… ’cause you _always_ do that? And ’cause you’re a buttface?” Finn says. 

“You like my buttface, squishy-butt,” Puck says, his smile getting bigger. 

“Yeah. What am I supposed to do without your buttface in my face every day?” Finn asks. “I have a buttface quota that’s not gonna get filled.”

Puck’s smile fades, and he nods slowly. “I don’t think Skype counts towards the quota.” 

“No, I don’t think so, either,” Finn says sadly. 

“We should get one of those frequent-flier account things, I guess,” Puck says. “And a couple of those make-your-own dildo kits.” 

“Dude! I already told you I’m not letting you put plaster around my dick, ’cause if it gets stuck, I’d have to go to the ER and explain why my dick’s stuck in a thing of plaster,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “Yeah, I can see the headlines. ‘NFL Rookie Reportedly at ER Following Plaster Dick Incident’. Any publicity is good publicity, right?” 

“Easy to say when it’s not your dick!”

“I said two kits!” 

“No kits, Puck. Zero kits. Not any kits,” Finn says. 

“Frequent flier account and premade dildos?”

“I don’t want dildos. I want you,” Finn says. “We should just send some dildos to the Panthers instead.”

“Well yeah, I’d rather have you than a dildo. Maybe I’ll get a cardboard cutout made of myself and have it shipped here. You can find it outside the door one day,” Puck says. “And probably the crate of dildos would have to be sent anonymously. After we get paid.” 

“Yeah, I guess we probably couldn’t afford a whole crate right now, anyway,” Finn says. 

“Also we should probably buy a table before we buy any dildos,” Puck admits. 

“I like eating on the floor. It feels like we’re in Japan.”

“I think most Japanese people have tables, and anyway, you’ve never been to Japan,” Puck says. “I don’t think it feels like we’re in Japan, I think it feels like we found an apartment and moved in in less than a week. And also like neither of us really knows how to cook.” 

“I can cook,” Finn says. “I can cook a lot of different stuff.”

“Opening up a variety of flavors of canned soup doesn’t really count, and we don’t actually do any cooking when we make smoothies,” Puck says. 

“I know how to make grilled cheese and fried eggs,” Finn says.

“That’s still only two meals we have covered.” 

“You can put the fried egg _in_ the grilled cheese. That’s really good, and it makes a third thing.”

“Maybe we need to steal that cookbook that your mom found at Costco a couple of years ago,” Puck says, shaking his head. “I don’t think Charlotte or Cleveland has take-out that is NFL-approved nutritionally.” 

“We could order it under fake names,” Finn says. “Or you’ll just have to come home to the apartment every night, even when you’re in Charlotte, so we can cook grilled cheese and eggs together.”

Puck half-smiles again. “I don’t think they pay us that much.” 

“Well, they should.”

“Well, yeah, but—” Puck stops at the sound of a knock on the door. “I guess that’s the washer and dryer. Or someone lost.” 

“The washer and dryer get to stay together,” Finn says. He stands up and walks to the door, looking out the peephole. “Yeah, it’s them.”

They spend the rest of the week setting up the apartment, so that everything’s at least roughly where it needs to be before they have to go to rookie mini-camp for their teams. Between Craigslist and Ikea, they even manage to get a real table and dressers and a thing to put their shoes in near the front door. None of that makes the impending separation any easier to think about, but there’s nothing either of them can do about the fact that they got drafted to two different parts of the country. The two nights of mini-camp seem like sucky practice for the even suckier, longer training camp. 

“At least there’s no press here,” Puck says when they get to the Cleveland airport early on Friday morning. “’Course it doesn’t guarantee someone doesn’t recognize us.” 

“We should’ve put on some hats or something,” Finn says. 

“I think every hat we own says either McKinley or Louisville, so that probably wouldn’t help,” Puck says, shifting his weight and making his duffel bag swing a little on his shoulder. 

“We should probably get some new hats, then,” Finn says. “Right?”

“What, get us each a Tigers hat?” Puck scoffs. 

“Sure. Maybe a hoodie, too.”

“I was thinking Pistons for the hoodie, but I’ll leave you in charge of that, since you’ve got today free,” Puck says. “I think I’d only find Hornets shit near Charlotte.” 

“Okay, I’ll get us disguises for the next time we have to do this,” Finn says. 

“Okay.” Puck shifts again, looks around, and then leans in to hug Finn. “I’ll see you Sunday night, squishy-butt.” 

“Don’t have too much fun without me, buttface.”

Puck pulls back and half-smiles. “I don’t think I know how to have fun without you anymore, if I ever did.” 

“Neither one of us ever got a lot of practice having fun without each other,” Finn says. “Probably too late to start now.”

“I don’t really want to, anyway.” Puck sighs and then takes a step backward. “I’ll call when I get done tonight.” 

“Okay. Play good,” Finn says. Puck walks backward as far as he can without bumping into people, and he waves once before turning around and getting in the short security line. Finn watches him until he goes through the scanners, then he heads back towards the parking lot. Two hours later, he gets a text from Puck, letting him know he landed and that he’s already in a taxi on the way to the facility in North Carolina. Finn hears from him again at around ten that evening, when Puck calls. 

“Half the people here talk really weird,” Puck says as soon as Finn answers. 

“Can you understand them, at least?” Finn asks. 

“Yeah, it’s still English,” Puck says with a little laugh. “I would have called about fifteen minutes earlier but I was talking to the front desk people here. Would it be weird if I lived in a hotel during the season?” 

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“It’s one of those extended-stay places for business travelers, but yeah, that’s what I was asking them, if I could get some kind of bulk discount or something. It’s like a little tiny studio apartment but all the furnishings and stuff are already here. Even silverware. I don’t want to buy more silverware.”

“Oh. That’s cool. Yeah, makes sense to only have one apartment, I guess,” Finn says. “Then it’s like you still _really_ live here with me, and you just stay there while you’re playing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Puck agrees. “And I do live there. I visit here or something.” 

“A hotel makes sense, then, right?”

“Right.” Puck pauses and there’s a loud thump. “I was so bored for the last three hours but I’m still tired and everything smells funny and I think it’s been, like, five years since I went to sleep by myself.” 

“Yeah. I’m not sure I’m really gonna be able to sleep,” Finn confesses. “I’ll just have to drink a lot of pop tomorrow.”

“Don’t drink a Red Bull right before you go past the media. And if you understand the concussion protocol, try to remember it, because the neurologist here is from Romania and I kept thinking maybe he was actually a vampire, especially since it was already dark before we ever saw him.” 

“Oh. Yeah, okay. I need to start writing stuff down, I guess, since I’m not gonna have you here to remember all this stuff for me,” Finn says. “And I’ll explain the concussion stuff when I get back from our neurologist thing.” 

“Okay. How can something be so awesome and suck so much at the same time?” 

“I guess we’re just that thing where you can do more than one thing at a time. Multi-doers.”

“I think that’s multi-tasking. Multi-doers sounds like a fungus,” Puck says. 

“I thought it sounded like a group sex thing,” Finn says. 

“Why do you need group sex?” Puck asks, sounding very offended. 

“I don’t. It just sounds like it. I’m really just thinking about you and how much I hate North Carolina.”

“I could change the lyrics of that song from ‘Sweet Caroline’ to ‘Fuck Carolina’,” Puck says. “Don’t think anyone’s hot tomorrow.” 

“Do I ever? You know I only have eyes for your buttfuce,” Finn says. 

“I’m just saying, that cornerback from Oklahoma has a jaw that looks like mine,” Puck says in his jealous voice. 

“That’s ridiculous. Of course he doesn’t. Nobody’s got a jaw like yours.”

“Or the legs on the tight end they drafted in the second round,” Puck continues. 

“No way,” Finn says. “Your legs are way better. I don’t even have to look at that other guy’s legs to know that.”

“Fine. Okay. Yeah.” Puck sighs heavily. “I guess we should try to sleep.” 

“I guess. Or you could stay on the phone and keep talking to me while we both lie in bed not sleeping,” Finn says. 

“What’s the worst that happens, we fall asleep still on the phone? We should take a lot of pictures this year and then eventually we can sell them as a book or with an exclusive interview or something,” Puck says. “And then we can use that money to buy our moms a duplex or something.” 

“Aww, that would be so awesome,” Finn says. “Our moms would love that.”

“Yeah, I think that’s better than diamond bracelets or whatever. So take a couple of selfies with a reporter tomorrow or something, okay?” 

“Okay. I’ll take a bunch of selfies all day and send ’em to you.”

“Want me to send you mine?” 

“Yeah. That’s almost like seeing you all day,” Finn says, settling himself into the bed.

“Okay,” Puck says, starting to yawn as he talks. 

“You know, I thought this bed was gonna be too small when we got it,” Finn says. “Now it seems too big.”

“Your squishy butt has too much room?” 

“Yeah. I need your buttface here with me to steal all the covers and put your cold feet on my feet.”

“Your feet are always warm. I’m going to have to buy socks to sleep in or something,” Puck says, and he sounds even sleepier. 

“Fuzzy socks,” Finn says. “You could get rainbow ones.” Puck doesn’t answer, and Finn realizes he’s probably fallen asleep. Finn doesn’t end the call, though, just props the phone next to his ear on the pillow and closes his eyes. “Night, buttface.”

Their phones must disconnect overnight, because when Finn wakes up, he sees the call ended at some time around three. He gets dressed and eats a quick breakfast, then drives down to Berea for the mini-camp. The parking lot has more reporters in it than Finn expected, and as he starts to head into the facility, they start shouting questions at him.

“Finn, a few minutes for questions?” the closest reporter says with an overly-toothy smile. 

“Uh, I don’t know if I’m supposed to answer questions,” Finn says. 

“Nothing in depth,” the same reporter says. “Excited to make some history?” 

“It’s mini-camp,” Finn says. “It’s not the Super Bowl.”

“Start of your rookie season, first openly gay quarterback in the NFL, and your first time playing without Noah Puckerman,” he says. 

Finn plasters on a smile and keeps walking. “I’m sure it’ll be a great season.”

“At least give us a little bit. Surely you’ve got thoughts about either of the last two,” the reporter says. “Does it feel weird to you, being on a different team? Are the two of you glad you’re in different conferences and won’t have to play each other?” 

“Like I said, I’m sure it’ll be a great season,” Finn repeats, continuing into the building without looking at the stupid reporter and his stupid questions. 

Rookie mini-camp is pretty much what Finn expected, up until Saturday, when one of the assistant GMs tells him it would be great if he’d answer a few questions before he leaves for the day. Finn sighs, since now he’s obligated to do the one thing he’s been pointedly not doing, and agrees that he can do that. 

An ESPN reporter is at the front of the small mob of reporters outside the facility, and it seems like the reporters have been informed that Finn will be taking questions, because the ESPN reporter waves him over. “Finn, just a few questions. Do you think there’s added pressure for you to perform better than average for your draft position? To prove a point or to be an example?” 

“I think there’s pressure to perform better than average so I get to stay on the team and keep playing,” Finn says. “Average doesn’t really cut it in the NFL.”

“A follow-up. Has anything about your NFL experience surprised you so far?” the ESPN reporter continues. 

“Yeah. I kinda thought people would ask more questions about the actual gameplay than they do,” Finn says. 

The ESPN reporter looks like he doesn’t quite understand what Finn’s saying, and the NFL Network reporter waves Finn over. “Any big differences to overcome in the playbook?” she asks. 

“We ran the ball more at Louisville, but honestly, it’s less different than I expected it to be,” Finn says. 

“I’m sure everyone’s glad to hear that here at the Browns,” the NFL Network reporter says. “Thank you for your time, Finn.” 

A few more reporters call out some specific questions about the playbook, and after Finn answers those, a CBS Sports reporter says, “Last question, Finn! As I mentioned yesterday, it’s the first time you’ve played without Noah Puckerman. Any comments on that?” 

What Finn wants to do is deck the guy for reminding him that Carolina pissed on all their hopes and plans, but instead he puts the performance smile back on. “Well, it’s not my favorite thing ever, but we’re both professionals and we’re gonna go out there and play our best games.” 

“Thank you for your time,” the CBS Sports reporter says, but he clearly looks somewhat disappointed at the lack of juicy scoop. No one else offers any more questions, probably because the Browns limited them before agreeing to have Finn take the questions. 

Finn drives back to the apartment the next day, intentionally not checking his phone, because if Puck’s flight is late or something, Finn can at least be on their couch with a beer when he reads that piece of news. The apartment’s quiet when Finn gets in, so he figures that probably means Puck isn’t back yet. He does get a beer before he checks his phone; no new messages. 

“That’d better be you and not someone breaking in to steal our beer,” Puck’s voice calls from the bedroom. 

Finn jumps, but he doesn’t slosh his beer. “Want me to bring you one, too?” he calls back. 

Puck laughs. “ _I_ don’t have to work out tomorrow, you can bring me two.” 

Finn gets two more beers out of the fridge, holding them in one hand and his own beer in the other as he walks back into the bedroom, where Puck is sprawled across the bed. “Hey, you,” Finn says, setting Puck’s beers down on the table by the bed. “Move over.”

“You’re not going to just sit on me?” Puck says, rolling slightly. “Hey. Flight got in ten minutes early, somehow.” 

“Probably tailwinds,” Finn says. 

“You don’t even know what a tailwind is,” Puck says, grabbing Finn’s wrist and pulling on it. 

“Yeah I do!” Finn insists. “It’s when the wind blows on the plane’s tail and makes it go faster. It happens all the time in my books.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Puck says dismissively. “Get down here.” 

“Gonna spill my beer all over your buttface, buttface,” Finn says. 

“You like my buttface, beer or not. Put the damn beer down.” 

Finn puts the beer down and promptly flops on top of Puck, taking Puck’s face in his hands as they kiss. Puck grabs Finn’s butt and then squeezes it, kissing back hard. 

“Missed you,” Puck says. “Missed you and your squishy butt.” 

“Yeah, my squishy butt missed you, too.” 

“I even had to actually jack off,” Puck adds, grinning. 

“Awww,” Finn says, squishing Puck’s face again. “You had to be horny without me? That’s the worst.”

“It’d be better if I had some naked pics to take with me next time,” Puck says. “They could be all artsy, even.” 

“You can’t take artsy pictures,” Finn points out. “You always get that lens flare thing, like in the Star Trek movies. The new ones.”

“Okay, I’ll just take not-artsy naked pictures of you,” Puck says agreeably. 

“I can just snap some dick pics to send you,” Finn offers. 

“It’s not too late to order those make-your-own dildo kits, you know.” 

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s too late for that.”

“Finn, it’s never too late for dildos,” Puck says. “You get any weird questions from the press?” 

“Mostly I just smile at ’em and ignore ’em, but otherwise, same-old same-old,” Finn says. 

“I got asked if the Panthers were considering playing me at tight end. You should be proud, I didn’t turn around and point to my butt and say I already was a tight end.” 

“It would’ve been true, at least,” Finn says. “Your end is great!”

“I can send you butt pics, then.” Puck grins. “But can you imagine? Them playing me at tight end? I started to ask the reporter if they had been in DC before they flew down to Charlotte, because maybe they were still high.” 

“You’re really not tall enough to play tight end, anyway,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be able to see over the cornerbacks. Comes in handy when I’m running, though. It’s like they don’t even see me, ’cause they’re looking too high up,” Puck says. 

“I never really had to look, not since junior year,” Finn says. “Always knew you’d be where you were supposed to be. All I had do was stick the ball out and I knew you’d get it.”

“Now it feels like some kind of life metaphor. I mean, more than football usually is,” Puck says. He squeezes Finn’s butt again. “If football’s life, what’s the metaphor going now? That we’re supposed to decorate with orange and black? Blue and brown?” 

“If we decorate with orange and black, it’d be like living on a tiger,” Finn says. 

“Or Halloween, but that’s not your favorite holiday,” Puck says. “Maybe blue and brown’s the better choice. Or we could do one of those themed apartments, and make it Christmas all year.” 

Finn shakes his head. “That’d be kinda weird.”

“But now that we’re big-time NFL players and everything, I was going to start buying you one of those Christmas villages!” Puck says. “You know, with the lights inside and everything.” 

“On the fake snow blanket?” Finn asks. 

“Yeah, and one of those music boxes that plays like fifteen different Christmas songs in a never-ending loop,” Puck says. “Motion-activated.” 

“Why you gotta be like that? Why you gotta ruin my fond Christmas memories by bringing up that damn motion-activated music box?”

“You want one that just plays all the time? We can do that,” Puck says. 

Finn squishes Puck’s face and kisses him again. “No music box.”

Puck sighs. “Without the music box, there’s just really no point in the Christmas village, Finn. Does this mean you’re vetoing the red and green color scheme for the apartment?” 

“Maybe we’ll just decorate based on stuff that we like the most, whether it matches or not,” Finn says. 

“So naked pics?”

“I think we wouldn’t be able to have anyone over,” Finn says. “But it’s not like we’re hosting parties or anything anyway.”

“Yeah, we live in a one-bedroom apartment, so we’re not having anyone over, period,” Puck says. “Maybe naked pics only in the bedroom.” 

“And the bathroom.”

“We can let our moms pick out a piece of art for the living room, so they feel involved,” Puck says. “And it’ll keep them from checking out the art in the bedroom. And bathroom.” 

“Sure. They can go shopping together. Moms like that kinda stuff,” Finn says. 

“I don’t actually know if all moms do, but ours do, at least,” Puck says. “We should let them pick out a dining room table for us, too. Not a big one, but one with room for two chairs.”

“Oh, yeah, they’ll like that,” Finn says. “We can get a centerpiece for it. They can pick that out.”

“I guess the centerpiece won’t be dildos to go with the naked pictures, then,” Puck says with an overly dramatic sigh. “Just wait, I’m going to get one for the hotel room in Charlotte, and you’re gonna be so jealous of my dildos.” 

“Yeah, sure, if that’s what makes you happy, thinking about my dildo jealousy,” Finn says. 

“You know you will be.” Puck shakes his head and moves his arms up Finn’s back a little before poking his butt. “How early do you have to be there in the morning?” 

“Early as balls,” Finn sighs. 

“Guess I’d better make sure you get full up on balls tonight, then,” Puck says. “Sound good?” 

“Can I finish my beer first?”

Puck shakes his head. “You’ll want it afterwards.”


	4. Chapter 4

Even though Finn and Puck were easily the best players on the field out of all the ninth graders—or probably even at McKinley altogether—Coach Tanaka still stuck them on the JV team, because all freshman had to start on the JV team. Puck said he thought it was all about dues-paying, but Finn was pretty sure it was actually more about Coach Tanaka only being able to handle about forty guys at a time. 

They lost the first five games of the season, because Finn and Puck really _were_ the best players on the JV team, and they couldn’t play more than their two positions at one time. If games only required throwing, catching, and running, the final scores might have been closer, but the McKinley defense couldn’t keep the opposing team out of a locked safe, let alone a whole giant endzone. Finn’s O-line wasn’t much better, but Finn was at least able to dodge a few of the guys who attempted to tackle him. 

“I’m going to yell at the O-line again if they aren’t better today,” Puck said as they got ready for the Saturday morning JV game at Finn’s house. “Do they think having ‘back’ in the position name means we’re all supposed to end up _on_ our backs? ’Cause it doesn’t.” 

“But when you yell, it makes Tiny cry,” Finn said. 

“Then Tiny oughta do his job better,” Puck said, looking angry. 

“But it’s sad when Tiny cries!”

“You’re too gullible. You have to stay upright to throw the ball, don’t they get that?” 

“Puck, I don’t think Tiny’s smart enough to fake crying or anything,” Finn said. “You know he’s doing 9th grade for like the fourth time.”

Puck looked exasperated, but also like he was trying not to smile. “I’m looking out for you, is all.” 

“Don’t look out for me by yelling at Tiny, is all I’m saying,” Finn said. 

“Fine. I’ll yell at everyone _but_ Tiny. Deal?” Puck asked. 

Finn held out his fist for Puck to bump it. “Deal.”

As soon as Puck bumped Finn’s fist, Carole called up the stairs. “Boys! Time to leave for the game!” 

“Oh, crap! We’ve actually got to get ready!” Finn said, as he stood and grabbed clean _ish_ -looking clothes from the floor. He swapped his pajamas for the clothes and hurried downstairs with Puck right behind him. 

When the game ended, Puck jumped on Finn’s back excitedly. “I don’t know what we did differently, but it worked!” Puck said as he pointed at the scoreboard. “We won by fourteen points! And we scored all twenty-eight points!” 

“’Cause we’re awesome,” Finn said. He spun side-to-side, to make Puck’s legs swing. 

“Yeah we are!” Puck yelled, and he kept hanging off Finn until they were in the locker room. “We need to keep doing it!” He dropped to the ground after Finn reached their lockers and started pulling off his uniform. Finn glanced over at Puck, then started to laugh.

“Uh, dude,” Finn said.

Puck gave him a weird look. “What?” 

“That’s my underwear.”

“Then what underwear are you wearing?” Puck scoffed. 

Finn pushed his football pants down, laughing harder. “Um. Not my underwear?”

“Did you steal my underwear?” 

“We were at _my_ house,” Finn said. “I think that means you technically stole mine.”

“No, you had _all_ the underwear, and you still took mine!” Puck said as he started to laugh. 

“Yeah, but why was your underwear on _my_ floor, with _my_ mostly-not-dirty clothes?”

“Because you’re an underwear hog!” Puck said gleefully. 

“I thought they felt a little tight, but I figured maybe they were a pair I outgrew or something,” Finn said, shrugging as he continued taking off his uniform. 

“It’s ’cause your butt’s squishy,” Puck said. “Maybe our underwear is why we won.” 

Finn nodded. “Yeah, maybe we should— _hey!_ My butt’s not squishy!”

“It’s a little bit squishy.” 

“It’s not any squishy!”

Puck laughed again and poked Finn’s butt. “Squish!” 

“Hey!” Finn twisted to the side, to get away from Puck’s finger. “It’s not squishy! It’s just one of those whatsits, those optimal illusion things, ’cause your underwear’s too tight!”

“’Cause my butt is awesome,” Puck retorted. 

“It’s lucky, maybe. You must have a lucky butt, ’cause I wore your underwear, and we won,” Finn said. 

“Guess we’ll have to try it next week,” Puck said. 

“If it makes us win, I’ll do it every game,” Finn said. 

Puck shrugged. “Cool. But your butt’s still squishy.” 

 

It’s not like Puck said it every time Finn gave him an opening, but he said it sometimes. Puck knew he couldn’t flat-out say it about himself, but maybe he could be lucky. Even though Puck went on a few dates with some of the cheerleaders, what he wanted hadn’t changed that much since eighth grade. There weren’t a lot of openings, even, but when he could, he threw it out. 

“See you at practice,” Puck said as soon as lunch ended. 

“Yeah. Oh, wait, no,” Finn said. “I can’t go to practice today.”

“Yeah? Why not?” Puck asked. “Are you coming out to your mom?” 

“Dude! Stop,” Finn said. 

“Not your mom? You’re coming out to someone else?” 

“ _Dude_!”

“It’s just a question!” Puck protested. 

“I’m going to the dentist,” Finn said. “He’s gonna tell my mom if I need braces, or if my teeth are awesome.”

Puck rolled his eyes. “Of course your teeth are awesome. You could come out to the dentist, I guess,” he added with a snort. 

“Dude! He’s just looking at my teeth!”

“Fine, another day, then,” Puck said. 

“Whatever,” Finn said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, though.”

“Don’t try to play hooky.” 

Puck didn’t bring it up again for at least three weeks, because he hadn’t wanted to seem too invested in the idea, and not everything Finn said was a good opportunity. Sooner or later, Puck thought, Finn would get fed up enough to ask Puck why he kept saying that. They left the field after practice one day, two of the last people out there, and Finn frowned as they walked. 

“What’s wrong?” Puck asked, then added, “Are you thinking about coming out?” 

“ _Dude_!” Finn said. 

“It’s a valid question!” 

“How is it a valid question?” Finn asked. “And why do you ask me that all the time?”

“Mostly because it’s funny.” Puck paused and looked around. “And on the off chance you ever _do_ need to come out, I’m giving you openings, see? No need to make a big deal, you can just say, ‘yep’.” 

“That’s kinda weird.”

“But it works, right?” Puck asked. 

“No, it doesn’t, ’cause you keep asking me all the time, so now it’s just annoying,” Finn said. 

“I haven’t asked you in at least three weeks!” Puck said. “What’s wrong with asking?” 

“I just don’t like it,” Finn said. 

“I thought it was kinda nice of me!” 

“You’re really obsessed with this,” Finn said.

“I want you to feel, you know. Supported. In any possibility in life,” Puck said as seriously as he could. 

Finn puts his hand on Puck’s shoulder and gave him a shove, though not a really hard one. “Okay. I get it. I’m supported. Now stop.”

Puck shoved back without quite as much force. “Whatever, dude.” 

He waited until after football season to mention it again, since Finn had seemed like he understood Puck’s motivation. Still, when the opportunity presented itself, Puck didn’t let it pass. 

“And then you’re coming out, right?” Puck said. 

“Oh my God!” Finn said. 

“No? Waiting until after Christmas dinner?” 

“Why are you so freaking obsessed with asking me that?” Finn asked. 

“I hadn’t checked in for awhile. Letting you know you’re still supported. Unlike some of us who would just be left hanging,” Puck said. 

“What?” Finn asked. “Did you want me to start bugging _you_ about coming out?”

“If we were getting graded on who was a better best friend, I think it’s clear who gets an A, is what I mean.” 

“Oh my God. Fine. Puck, are you coming out?” Finn asked. 

“No,” Puck said flippantly. “You know how seriously my mom takes Hanukkah.” It wasn’t even a lie, because Puck wasn’t coming out, not when he already knew he was closer to bi than gay, and not when Finn, as far as Puck knew, was straight. 

“Whatever,” Finn said. He huffed a little, making that same stupid grumpy glare-face, then he dove at Puck, tackling him to the ground. 

“Hey!” Puck yelped. He wrapped his legs around Finn, and part of his brain said that was a bad idea. He flipped the two of them and stuck out his tongue at Finn. Finn flailed around, trying to throw Puck, then he bucked his hips as he elbowed Puck hard in the side. Puck’s eyes widened and he realized that it was definitely a bad idea to stay in that position, unless he did want to come out or something like it. He rolled off of Finn, hands raised. “Fine, fine!” He knew he’d have to avoid that kind of tackling, and maybe eventually, he thought, he could flippantly say ‘yes’, if Finn asked again.


	5. Chapter 5

With Finn’s last day of rookie mini-camp behind them, the rest of May is a bubble Puck does his best not to pop. They go work out together at the training facility their strength coach back at Louisville had recommended, which ends up only being twenty-five minutes or so away, and there’s nothing weird to anyone about the two of them still training together. Puck gets a few emails from the Panthers’ strength division, and he hooks them up with the contact information for the trainer, along with a note that he’s probably getting better training by sticking with his consistent training partner, anyway. 

The Panthers haven’t really done anything to Puck, except for picking him in the first place, so he tries not to be too upset with anything they request. It’s frustrating, though, being almost exactly where he wanted to be and having it snatched away at the very last second, and the emails he types but doesn’t send are about the only way he has to vent the frustration. It’s not Finn’s fault, and Finn’s just as frustrated, and who else could Puck tell? 

June is more of the bubble as it starts. Finn gets invitations to at least four different Pride parades inviting him to be a Grand Marshal or an Honorary Grand Marshal, which makes Puck wonder if those come with a sash or a crown or a banner or something. Still, he tells Finn exactly what their agent tells him: he has to turn them all down. He can’t spend June criss-crossing the country to accept all four invitations, because that will mean he gets even more invitations the following year, and if he accepts only one or two, it leaves people upset that they weren’t the Pride parade chosen. It’s better to disappoint everyone equally, or something like that. 

The second and third weekends are OTA, which suck the same amount that rookie mini-camp did, but on the other hand, Puck feels like they’re moderately doable. It’s a couple of nights of dick pics and jerking off, but the reunion feels pretty nice, and by the time Independence Day rolls around, Puck feels moderately okay with everything. It’s not the solution that he and Finn wanted, and definitely not the perfect situation that they had had reason to hope for, but Puck can acknowledge that he’s still one of the luckiest guys around. He’s doing exactly what he always wanted to do, playing for an NFL team, and Finn’s right beside him metaphorically, even if not on the field. 

The distance between Charlotte and Cleveland—between Charlotte and home—is over five hundred miles. It could be a lot bigger or a lot worse, Puck guesses, and both Charlotte and Cleveland are large enough airports that there are non-stop flights between them. Puck knows they’re going to end up spending a lot of money on airline travel, but when they sit down with the training camp, preseason, and regular season schedules for both teams, Puck realizes they should be able to manage two nights a week together during the regular season. He’ll fly out of Charlotte on Monday evenings after practice, and fly back into Charlotte on Wednesday mornings, just before practice. They have a plan for the regular season. 

The problem, as Puck sees it, is that they have to get through training camp and preseason first, and as mid-month approaches, Puck can tell they’re both avoiding talking about it or thinking about it. Puck ignores the emails about what to bring to training camp as much as he can, and they somewhat-stubbornly stick to their schedule of work outs and evening television even as the days go by. 

“What do you want to watch tonight?” Puck calls as he stares at the Trader Joe’s frozen chicken meal, currently cooking in the skillet. “Please not E!.” 

“What’s wrong with E!?” Finn asks. 

“I know you’re only hoping to get casting scoop on those tornado-love movies,” Puck says. “Or press for the other movie.” 

“And again, I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Finn says. “ _Tornado Alley_ is great. You’d like them if you’d read them.”

“You read part of the first one aloud, remember? And I read like three more chapters because you made the puppy-dog face at me,” Puck says, lifting the lid to poke at the rice. Arsenic or no arsenic, they’re having rice with stir-fry. 

“Which means you didn’t even get to the good part, which is where Mitchell and Julie have their first confrontation after the F3 outside Ulysses!”

“Dude, I couldn’t stay awake through the F3,” Puck says. “I don’t figure the movie’ll be any different, no matter who they cast.” He gets out two of their plates—also purchased by their moms—and starts dishing up the rice and the chicken stir-fry, one plate with the stir-fry on top and one with the stir-fry beside the rice. 

“I still think you’ll like the movies, at least,” Finn says. 

“Uh-huh,” Puck says, grabbing silverware and the plates and heading into the living room. He groans before he even sits down. “You already put it on E!. Party foul.” 

“It’s the only thing on!”

Puck gives Finn his best disbelieving look as he hands him his plate. “The _only_ thing? We get something like two hundred and fifty channels, and you’re telling me that this was the only thing on?” Puck sits down and takes a bite. “Don’t tell me you actually think they’re getting some A-Lister for Julie and what’s-his-name.” 

“Fine, it’s the only thing on that I want to watch,” Finn says. He eats a forkful of stir-fry. “This is good. And yeah, I think they’re getting an A-Lister for Julie and _Mitchell_.”

“It said serves four, so I figured that meant serves the two of us,” Puck says. “Okay, I’ll bite. Who do you think they’re casting for the tornado love-in?” 

“They’ve been talking maybe Taye Diggs, but it could be this new guy,” Finn says. 

“You really think Taye Diggs would accept a part in those movies?” Puck asks incredulously. “Really?” 

“Maybe. If he doesn’t, the new guy could be pretty good,” Finn says. He shoves another bite into his mouth. “He’s hot enough, anyway.”

Puck finishes chewing the bite in his mouth and raises an eyebrow. “ _Hot_ enough?” 

“Yeah. What’s-his-name. Erron something. Erron Crawford, maybe?” Finn says. “He’s hot enough to be Mitchell.”

“Hot enough. Huh.” Puck takes another bite and chews it, and either Finn is not paying attention or he’s purposely ignoring Puck’s tone. “So that’s why you’re so excited about these movies? Because the lead guy is hot enough for you?” 

“I’m excited because they’re my favorite natural disaster books _ever_ , and I’m getting three big-budget movies of them,” Finn says. 

“And because you think the protagonist is hot.” 

“Oh my God. Are you _jealous_?” Finn asks, setting down his plate and staring at Puck with a weird look on his face. “Over _Tornado Alley_?”

“You’re the one who turned on E! and is all excited about it because of the ‘hot enough’ casting,” Puck says. “Maybe I should be.” 

“You have got to be fucking kidding me! What, are you afraid I’m gonna run off with Erron What’s-his-name?” Finn asks, now looking like he can’t decide if he’s confused, amused, or just pissed. 

“Well, I _was_ just figuring you’d try to set up a meet-and-greet, but since you’re mentioning running off, maybe I should be worried,” Puck says. 

“Oh my God, you are such an idiot,” Finn says. “You think people are hot all the time! I didn’t say I wanted to have sex with him. I just thought he’d be a good Mitchell! The _character_ from my favorite _books_. Not the guy I want to hook up with or the guy I want to eat stir-fry with!”

“I am not an idiot.” Puck glares at Finn. “And now there _is_ a guy you want to hook up with?” 

“Yeah, _you_ , you buttface!” 

“Well, you want to drool over Taye Diggs while we eat stir-fry, so how do I know?” Puck says, gesturing to the TV screen where Taye Diggs’s headshot is currently showing. 

“Wow,” Finn says, his nose scrunching up as he frowns. He stands up, taking his plate with him. “Just wow. Nice.” He storms off into the kitchen with his plate in hand. 

“If it’s not about how hot he is, why’d you mention it?” Puck yells after him. 

“I’m not talking to you right now!” Finn shouts back. 

“You’re missing your all-important casting announcement!” Finn doesn’t answer, and Puck scowls at E! while he keeps eating his own stir-fry. Finn storms through towards the bedroom before Puck finishes his plate, so Puck eats slowly before heading to the kitchen. It’s probably Finn’s turn to clean up since Puck cooked, but he cleans up anyway, mainly to dawdle, then goes towards the bedroom. 

Finn has his tablet in front of him, and Puck shuts the door before leaning against it. “I never fucking bugged you this much about Mario.” 

“Whatever,” Finn says, not looking up from his tablet. “I’m not watching the show. You can be happy and leave me alone now.”

“Yeah, I’m so happy,” Puck says. “That’s what the big smile and the laughing’s all about.” He flops down on the bed next to Finn, nudging his side. 

“I’m looking at plays,” Finn says, turning the tablet away from Puck. 

“A, like I’m going to go back to Carolina and tell them anything, and B, like we’re ever going to play each other all year,” Puck says. “And C, how _do_ I know what you’re going to do for the next six fucking weeks? Maybe meet-and-greet sounded good.” 

“You’ve known me for almost twenty years, is how you know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna play football, reread the same books, rewatch the same TV shows, and be pathetic for all but two days out of the week,” Finn says. “And I can’t believe you’d act like I’d go meet-and-greet with somebody else. That’s really shitty, and you should take it back.”

“I didn’t mean meet-and-greet as another word for hook up,” Puck complains. “And we don’t even get two days a week yet, and I know we’re supposed to like… take pictures when we get to training camp and Instagram them with hashtags like ‘#luckiestguysonearth’ and ‘#blessed’ but I don’t want to.” 

“Well, I don’t want to, either, but I don’t want to go to some meet-and-greet, either. I just want you to watch a stupid movie with me, even if you hate the books. Maybe we could even go to, I don’t know. Like some kind of special release or something,” Finn says. 

“You could probably write them and ask for tickets to the premiere, but then I couldn’t go, remember?” Puck says, making a face. “So much for that part of our grand plan, too.” 

“Big action movies always come out in the summer. You’ll be able to go.”

“Okay, I couldn’t go with-with you, anyway,” Puck says. 

“Sure you can,” Finn says, setting down the tablet and actually looking at Puck. “We go to all kinds of things together. Everybody’s used to us going to stuff together.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe they’ll think that since we’re not on the same team anymore, it’s weird. I don’t know.” Puck rolls onto his back and folds his arms over the top of his head. “I don’t know what to do. Maybe we were wrong.” 

“Then we change it,” Finn says. He rolls onto his side, draping one arm over Puck. “You want to have it be different? We’ll have it be different. You can come out, too, and we’ll deal with it.”

“It feels like I don’t get to right now, you know? Not between the draft and the final roster. And if I do, does that end any chance of us ending up on the same team at some point?” Puck shakes his head a little. “I just don’t _know_.”

“Before next summer, then. After we’ve played a full season. That’s still in time for the _Midnight in Tornado Alley_ premiere,” Finn says. He wedges his head in the space between Puck’s arm and head, and presses his face into the side of Puck’s neck, kissing it a few times. 

“Gotta be in time for that, huh?” Puck says. “Maybe you’re actually angling for a threeway with Taye Diggs?” 

“No way. He’s _so_ not my type,” Finn says, throwing one leg over Puck’s legs, so he’s mostly covering Puck. 

“Oh yeah? What’s your type?” 

Finn presses more kisses into Puck’s neck. “You. You’re my only type.”

“But I’d be even hotter if I went back to college after the NFL and learned how to hunt tornadoes?” 

“Or became a meteorologist and took me hunting for thundersnow or squid typhoons,” Finn says, in between kisses. “Or an earthquake-ologist. We could go some place that’s going to break off from the mainland and help save people.”

“I never should have agreed to seeing _San Andreas_ with you,” Puck says with a groan. “Even if there were benefits.” 

“Which is why you bought me the director’s cut Blu-Ray for Christmas that year,” Finn says. He rolls the rest of the way on top of Puck, his legs on either side of Puck’s. 

“Yeah, it made Christmas evening really merry,” Puck says, moving his arms to wrap them around Finn. “You’re a big dork, buttface.” 

“Yeah, and you’re my squishyface jerk, buttface,” Finn says. “And I love you. Don’t be jealous over stupid shit. I’m not ever gonna want anybody but you. Get it?”

“It’s not stupid. You know I get jealous.” Puck pokes Finn’s butt. “I love you too.” 

“Yeah, but you don’t have to be jealous. I’m never, ever gonna give you a reason to worry,” Finn promises. 

“I’m just saying. There’s probably hot guys on your team,” Puck says with a little sigh. “And you wouldn’t even make me a dildo.” 

“There’s nobody hot on my team but me,” Finn says. “And no, I’m still not putting my dick in plaster for you, even if you’re a jealous buttface.”

“I’m going to keep asking. All the way up until I get on that plane in three days,” Puck warns. 

“Shhh. We’re not talking about the plane.” Finn burrows his face into the side of Puck’s neck. 

Puck sighs and closes his eyes. “Yeah.” 

Not talking about the plane and spending most of the last three days in bed doesn’t change the fact that eventually Puck has to throw a bunch of things in his suitcases. They put on Detroit Tigers baseball caps and head to the airport, Puck staring out the window most of the time. 

The thing is, Puck knows they’ve had almost three full months to get ready, three months they’ve known it’s coming, and he still doesn’t really feel ready for it. He checks two of his bags and walks towards the security line, still holding Finn’s hand. No one really looks at them except for a couple of sneers at the Tigers hats. 

When they get to the end of the security line, Puck steps to the side, frowning. He knows, intellectually, there was a time before he knew Finn, and he even vaguely remembers before they were more than ‘just’ best friends, but it’s all a little hazy. Puck also doesn’t remember not wanting to go to NFL training camp, so he’s not sure if he should be celebrating, crying, or maybe just yelling to cover everything at once. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I want to play,” Puck finally says. “But I also don’t really want to get on that plane right now.” 

“I want you to play, too,” Finn says. “And I want to play, but if I could stop you having to get on that plane, I’d do it.”

“Yeah. Exactly. You think these hats are a good enough disguise?” 

“Oh, definitely,” Finn says. He pulls Puck close, their mouths coming together a little roughly. Puck keeps his hands above Finn’s waist, since they are technically in public, and kisses Finn hard. 

“Hey, I’m supposed to get a day off in, like… eighteen days,” Puck says. “And you get one in, what, twenty? That’ll be a good week at least?” 

“Yeah. That’s not that long, right?” Finn says, still holding on to Puck.

“Yeah.” Puck swallows. “I’ll call you when I land, okay?” 

“Even if they haven’t turned the seatbelt sign off yet,” Finn prompts. 

“Even then,” Puck promises. “Love you, buttface.” 

“Yeah, love you too, buttface.”

Puck backs up slowly until he’s at the end of the relatively short security line. “Don’t like any of their ’backs better than me.” 

 

Finn’s phone rings almost three hours later, close to a half-hour later than Puck should’ve landed. “Hey,” he says as soon as he answers. “Make it, finally?”

“Took forever for the plane to take off,” Puck says. “And it feels like walking in soup down here.” 

“You were supposed to call as soon as you landed,” Finn says, trying not to sound too put-out, and probably not managing. 

“Yeah, I know, but I was sitting next to a grandma. She wanted to talk about her grandkids she’s here to visit, and then when we landed, I realized she had two carry-ons. I don’t know how she got on the plane. So I helped her find her grandkids,” Puck says. “I probably should have told ’em I played for the Panthers for good PR or something.” 

“Next time I have to give an interview, I’ll tell them about it,” Finn says. “I can brag on you a little bit, plus maybe they’ll ask me better questions that way.”

“You’re giving the press a lot of credit. Probably too much credit. You want me to call you again tonight after I get down to camp?” Puck asks. “I can tell you if there’s anything on that packing list you don’t really need before you leave tomorrow.” 

“Yeah. I don’t have anything else to do but pack, so call me as many times as you want, okay?”

“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t do that since it looks like there’s…” Puck’s voice trails off. “Five, six other people on the shuttle between the airport and there. They’d probably find the conversation a little interesting.” 

“You can call me Alicia or Jenny if you need to,” Finn says. “Nobody’ll know it’s me.”

“Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine?” Puck says with a laugh. “I’ll call you from bed, at least.” 

“Yeah, you will. Send me one of those pics first, though, so it’s fresh in my mind when we talk.”

Puck laughs again. “Okay, buttface. Gotta go.” 

“Show Carolina how much better than them you are,” Finn says, then he ends the call. He stares up at his ceiling. “Ugh. This sucks.”

After a few minutes, he makes himself get up and continue getting ready for training camp. He goes through the fridge and the cabinet they use as a pantry, making sure they haven’t left any expirable food in either. For some reason, cleaning out the fridge makes Finn feel the most adult he’s ever felt, which just drives home how much it sucks to be separated from Puck for as long as they will be this time. It doesn’t feel normal, being away from him for so long. 

Finn packs everything on the list, plus extras of things like socks, underwear, and undershirts. He packs, unpacks, and repacks his toiletries, occasionally checking his phone to make sure he hasn’t missed a call or text. 

Right after nine, Finn’s phone dings, and the preview on the screen is a somewhat-contorted looking picture of Puck’s back and butt. Ten seconds later, the phone rings.

“Hey,” Finn says. “Nice butt shot.”

“This room’s tiny, but I did my best. After I locked the door, anyway,” Puck says. There’s a loud creak followed by Puck exhaling loudly. 

“How is it?” Finn asks. 

“Too much talking today. Schedules, tours, playbooks, rules, more rules, and in case we didn’t have enough of them, more rules. It looks like it’ll be after ten most days before I get back here, but on the first day we don’t have to listen to a life skills lecture or go over plays in the evening,” Puck says. “The first week of lectures is about ‘safe relationships’.” 

“What does that mean?” Finn asks. “Like, don’t date people in the mob?”

“Nah, it’s the ‘don’t be Greg Hardy’ lecture series. Or Adrian Peterson. Which is good, but you know, irrelevant for me,” Puck replies. “And then the second week is nutrition. That makes six straight years of nutrition lectures.” 

“We’re hella good at eating now, though,” Finn says.

“You, me, and Trader Joe, yeah,” Puck says. “Weight room starts tomorrow, but no pads yet. I’d say because of the heat but I’ve been told the heat and humidity are just going to get worse, so now I’m actually looking forward to that preseason game in Philly.” 

“Damn. Is the a/c good in your room, at least?”

“Yeah, good enough. Helps I’m naked now, but you knew that already,” Puck says. “Maybe I’ll order a fan on amazon.” 

“Good plan. Get some of those snapping ice pack things, too. You can keep ’em by your bed,” Finn says. 

“Yeah. Pick some up for yourself on your way in tomorrow. You remember it got hot in Louisville, too,” Puck says. “You all packed?” 

“Mostly.”

“You want me to send _you_ a dildo?” 

Finn laughs. “You know me. I only like the real thing.”

“Cloning technology’s not really my thing, buttface. You going to talk to me while I start to fall asleep?” 

“Yeah,” Finn says, moving his bag to the side so he can lie down on their bed. “I can tell you all about my exciting day of cleaning out the fridge and packing my socks.”

“You’re going to feel funny if you packed any of my socks and they’re too tight,” Puck says, sounding a little bit sleepy. 

“It’ll make me faster, I bet.”

Puck snorts and yawns. “Faster’s my job. You just have to throw a lot.” 

“Well, I can’t wear the socks on my hands. People’ll look at me weird,” Finn says. 

“People already look at you weird, buttface. You’d just be doing ’em a favor. Giving them an excuse,” Puck says. “You should send me a picture of your socks tomorrow so I know they’re in the right place.” 

“Oh yeah?” Finn says. “Which place is the right place?”

“You’re twenty-three and you don’t know where socks go?” Puck yawns again. “Miss you, buttface.” 

“Yeah, I miss you, too. Love you, buttface.” 

Puck doesn’t answer again after that, and soon, Finn hears the soft sound of Puck’s almost-snoring sleep breathing. Finn sighs to himself, listening for another few minutes, before he ends the call. He finishes his packing before he goes to bed. 

Unlike Carolina, the Browns put their players up in a hotel during training camp, and while rookies usually have to share a room, Finn’s given his own. He doesn’t bother to ask why, because he already knows why, and actually hearing the answer out loud would only piss him off. He’s on edge enough as it is, thinking about being away from Puck as long as knows he’s going to be. 

Training camp isn’t bad, just exhausting, physically and mentally. By the time he and Puck are both back, showered, and ready for bed, they don’t have enough energy left to talk for long, since they have to be back up again early the following morning. They make a few half-hearted attempts at phone sex, but they’re both really bad at it. After the third failed attempt, they agree to just jerk it in the shower independently while thinking about the other. 

On the 18th day of training camp, Finn gets back to his hotel room and Puck is already there, a small bag on the floor by the bed and Puck on the bed, naked and looking hotter than ever.

“Wow. Hey,” Finn says. He slides the safety latch on the door closed. “Can I just stand here and look at you for a minute?”

Puck grins, turning his head towards Finn. “Only if you’re naked while you’re doing it.” 

“Sure!” Finn shucks off his clothes, standing near the bed staring at Puck. He lets out a low whistle. 

“Shhh,” Puck says, still grinning. “Don’t want to let your neighbors find out you’re entertaining a gentleman caller.” 

“So I’ve gotta be real quiet when I do this?” Finn asks, crawling onto the bed and on top of Puck, kissing his chest the whole way up. 

Puck nods. “Very, very quiet.” He slides his hands over Finn’s arms slowly. “God, you’re the best thing I’ve seen in weeks.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. He dips his head to kiss his favorite spot on Puck’s neck, smelling him and licking and lightly biting all in that spot. Puck tilts his head to the side, his hands squeezing Finn’s arms before running down Finn’s back. 

“I got one complaint, though,” Puck says, not sounding put out at all. 

“What?”

Puck pokes at Finn’s butt. “Your butt’s less squishy.” 

“So’s your face,” Finn retorts, squishing Puck’s cheeks between the fingers and thumbs of one hand. “I’ll just have to do it more to make up the difference.”

“Yeah?” Puck pokes Finn’s butt again. “I guess I can try that.” He lifts his head and kisses Finn almost softly. Finn runs his thumb over Puck’s chin while they kiss, using his other hand to touch Puck in as many places as possible, running over his side and chest, into his hair. 

Puck shifts with Finn’s hand, pressing into it as it moves, and he kisses Finn a little harder. Finn grinds down against Puck, his legs still more or less on either side of Puck’s. Puck runs one foot up the back of Finn’s calf, leaving it there. 

“Shit, we should get a prize or something,” Puck says. 

“For not leaving me for somebody in Spartanburg?” Finn asks. “Somebody close enough to make out with every day?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s it,” Puck says with a snort. “No, we should get a prize for making it eighteen fucking days. And remind me I got a story for you later.” He squeezes Finn’s butt and moves his foot down Finn’s calf. “ _Later_.” 

“Way later,” Finn says. He puts his mouth on the side of Puck’s neck again, sucking on it lightly, not enough to make a mark. 

“Yeah.” Puck lets out a soft sigh, his head rolling a little again, and he arches up against Finn. “Yeah, let’s forget everything for a little while.” 

“Mmhmm,” Finn murmurs against Puck’s neck. He catches Puck’s earlobe between his teeth and carefully nibbles at it, then runs his tongue along it. Puck whimpers and squeezes Finn’s butt. 

“More,” Puck says, whining more than speaking. 

“Nuh-uh. Gotta wait,” Finn says. He sucks on Puck’s earlobe, grinding himself down against Puck. Both of his hands slide up to Puck’s head to hold it steady.

“I don’t want to wait.” Puck arches up again, spreading his hands wide on Finn’s lower back. “I’ve _been_ —there—waiting.” He pushes back against Finn, whimpering again. 

Finn bites Puck’s ear, still gently, then moves his mouth to Puck’s jaw, lightly nipping it with his teeth while continuing to hold Puck’s head still. “I’m not making you wait everything,” Finn promises. “I’m not making you wait long. I just need to be all over you for a minute.”

“You’re all over me,” Puck agrees, half-closing his eyes as he whimpers and squirms a little. “Like I’m your favorite mattress.” 

“That’s ’cause you are,” Finn says. He kisses the point of Puck’s chin, down his throat, and lower, nuzzling his nose against Puck’s chest in between more kisses. His hands slide from Puck’s head to his shoulders, then to his hips, pinning him down as Finn kisses down the line of hair from Puck’s bellybutton to his dick. 

“You like a lumpy mattress,” Puck says in between making wordless noises, still squirming as much as he can. Finn pushes down harder on Puck’s hips as he starts to wraps his lips around the head of Puck’s dick, moving slowly and flicking his tongue out to taste him. Puck whines again. “Finn.”

Finn laughs deep in his chest as he slides his mouth down Puck’s dick, licking and sucking him. Puck huffs at Finn’s laugh, then breaks off with a whimper, his hands flat on Finn’s shoulders. Finn takes his time, sucking slowly and letting Puck’s dick hit the back of his throat from how deep Finn takes him. 

“God, Finn,” Puck says, his head tilting back and his body rising off the bed a little. “That’s the best thing I’ve felt, too.” 

Finn keeps going for a few minutes before lifting his head. “Want to finish like this?” he asks. “I want you to.”

Puck nods slowly. “Yeah, okay,” he says, fingers squeezing Finn’s shoulders. 

“Good,” Finn says, deepthroating Puck again. His fingers dig into Puck’s hips to keep him pinned, and Puck starts whining and moaning again. Finn releases Puck’s right hip, reaching up and clamping his hand over Puck’s mouth instead to muffle the noise. Puck keeps whimpering, his hips rocking slightly and his hands squeezing even more tightly. It takes less than thirty seconds before Puck starts to come, moaning under Finn’s hand. 

Finn licks Puck clean, then flops halfway on top of him again, taking his hand off Puck’s mouth to kiss him. Puck kisses back slowly, his hands almost limp on Finn’s back. “That what you wanted, buttface?” Puck asks with a small grin. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Definitely.” He presses his dick against Puck’s side. 

“Just not the only thing?” Puck says, his grin getting wider. “You want to fuck me now?” 

“Can you be a little quieter than when I was sucking your dick?” Finn asks. 

“I can try?” Puck says, a little bit dubiously. 

“You don’t mind if I cover your mouth if you get loud? I don’t want people to hear you shouting. That’s all for me.”

“Yeah. Okay. That’s cool,” Puck says almost dopily, nodding. 

“You got stuff or do I need to find where mine went?” Finn asks. 

“Ketchup packet lube in my bag down there,” Puck says, gesturing to the floor. Finn crawls off of Puck and sits on the end of the bed, grabbing Puck’s bag and digging around in it until he finds one of the single-use lube packets. 

“You want anything specific?” Finn asks, draping his body over Puck’s again and trailing his hand down Puck’s chest to loosely hold Puck’s dick. He strokes it slowly. 

Puck shakes his head. “We’re both here, my feet’re going to be warm tonight, you’re going to be fucking me in a minute or two, I’m doing really good.” 

“I missed your ice-cold feet,” Finn says. “I missed all the parts of you.” He noses the side of Puck’s neck, sliding off him enough that he can encourage Puck to roll onto his side, Finn’s chest against Puck’s back, his dick pressing at Puck’s butt. He keeps slowly stroking Puck’s dick until it starts getting hard again, then jerks him off a little faster while he kisses Puck’s neck. 

“Yeah,” Puck agrees, pushing his butt against Finn’s dick. “I forgot to buy those fuzzy socks. Maybe you can get me some.” 

“Are you gonna wear them right, like I did?” Finn asks. 

“Better get me two pair if you want one of ’em to end up on my dick.” 

“You thought it was funny!”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, I did, I just have _really_ cold feet.” 

“Yeah, I know you do,” Finn says. He strokes Puck’s dick a couple more times, then moves his hand down to cup Puck’s balls briefly before rolling onto his back enough to open the lube packet, pouring some onto his finger. He rolls back towards Puck, nudging Puck’s top leg forward with a knee to the back of Puck’s knee. Puck shifts his leg, squirming a little as he does. 

Finn presses his index fingertip to Puck’s hole. As his finger slowly sinks into Puck, who feels tighter around his finger than Finn’s used to him feeling, Finn kisses Puck’s shoulder. “Is this the longest we’ve ever gone?” he asks. “I think it’s the longest.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely the longest,” Puck says. “Your mom probably would have killed us if she knew we were fucking while you had that respiratory thing, but we didn’t let that stop us.” He pushes back onto Finn’s finger, sighing. “Missed this.” 

“We just fucked really, really carefully, so I didn’t breathe too hard.” Finn pushes in deeper, moving his finger to press against Puck’s prostate. “Like that?”

Puck moans and nods. “Yeah. Let’s breathe too hard now.” 

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Finn says. He nudges Puck’s shoulder with his nose, urging Puck to roll more. Puck does, onto his stomach with one leg folded up almost underneath him. Finn pushes a second finger into Puck, both of them sliding in to the second knuckle, Finn pressing and fluttering them against Puck’s prostate until Puck is letting out a string of whimpers. Finn kisses the back of Puck’s neck. 

“Finn,” Puck whines. “Come _on_.” 

“I just want to get you ready,” Finn says. “It’s been eighteen whole days. You probably forgot how to relax or something like that.”

“I’m extra-ready ’cause it’s been eighteen days,” Puck says, whimpering again. 

“But I want you to make that noise you make. The one you make when you’re really, _really_ ready and I first get inside you,” Finn says, kissing Puck’s neck again. 

“I thought I was supposed to be quiet.” 

“It’s not a loud noise. It’s just the best noise.”

“Finn,” Puck says again, drawing it out even more. “How can I make it if you aren’t inside me, then?” 

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense,” Finn says. He withdraws his fingers, using that hand to spread lube on his own dick. He presses the tips against Puck’s hole, holding his breath as he starts to slide inside. 

Puck lets out a deep, content sigh with just a hint of a whimper at the end, pressing back against Finn. Finn leans forward, chest against Puck’s back, not really moving inside him. He kisses Puck’s shoulders on both sides, bracing one arm against the bed and wrapping the other around Puck’s chest. He pulls Puck back onto his dick as he starts to cant his hips forward. 

“Just like that,” Puck mumbles as he presses into each point of contact between them. “God I missed you.” 

“I know. I missed you, too, missed you so bad,” Finn says. He spreads his hand across Puck’s chest. “You feel even better than I remember. Didn’t think that was possible.”

“Maybe there’s something about the workout. I’ll thank the trainers,” Puck says, whining at the end of each sentence. 

“Yeah. You feel _really_ good, Puck, like, just damn.” Finn runs his hand down Puck’s chest, feeling the increased muscle bulk and definition. “You feel like a comic book superhero.” 

“Yeah?” Puck moves his hips with Finn’s. “Marvel or DC?” 

“‘Hush’-era Batman.”

“Nice,” Puck says, sounding pleased. “I can work with that.” 

Finn sits back more, so Puck has to straighten his arms to keep holding himself up, then runs his hand down Puck’s chest to encircle his dick. “Good. He was one of your favorite Batmans.”

“Yeah, he was.” Puck shifts his weight, tightening around Finn’s dick. “I don’t think you’re Robin, though.” 

“Nah. Definitely not Robin. Oh God, Puck, that’s— shit, yeah, move just like that.”

“This?” Puck does the same thing again, pressing a little more of his weight against Finn. “Good?” 

“Yeah. You?” Finn asks. He snaps his hips forward, pushing into Puck. 

“Really fucking good,” Puck says, letting out a short moan each time Finn’s hips move. 

“Shh, can’t be loud,” Finn says. “We’re not home.”

“We’re here,” Puck argues, still moaning and whining as he pushes back into each thrust. 

“Yeah, here where you can’t be so loud,” Finn says. He slams up into Puck again. Puck lets out an even louder moan, so Finn moves the hand he’d been bracing against the bed, putting his hand over Puck’s mouth. 

Puck doesn’t make any fewer noises as he keeps moving with Finn, sporadically tightening around Finn’s dick. Puck’s breath is hot against Finn’s hand, his mouth vibrating against Finn’s palm every time he makes a noise. Finn presses his chest to Puck’s back again so he can whisper close to Puck’s ear, “You are so fucking hot like this.”

That makes Puck whine again, loud even through Finn’s hand, and he rocks his hips against Finn forcefully. Finn starts jerking Puck off, moving his hand fast and rough. Puck pushes into Finn’s hand and back up onto Finn’s dick, almost frantically and still moaning. When Finn starts to come, it’s so sudden and so hard that it surprises him, and he’s just as loud as Puck as he thrusts into Puck a few more times. Puck lets out a final high-pitched whine and comes a second time in Finn’s hand before sagging against the bed. 

Finn leans his weight against Puck’s back until he catches his breath a little, then he slides off, landing next to Puck on the bed. “Hey,” he says, putting his forehead against the side of Puck’s head. 

“Mmm. Hey.” Puck turns his head slightly and smiles. “I’m going to go back down there and tell Norwell yeah, I did,” he says, pressing against Finn and sliding his feet between Finn’s legs. “That was the story. I should tell you now ’cause in the morning you’ll be grumpy.” 

“Mmkay,” Finn says. He wraps one arm around Puck. “Tell me your Norwell story.”

“Yesterday at lunch, everyone was talking about our day off, and most of ’em were going to sleep in tomorrow or go eat somewhere else,” Puck says. “We’re leaving, though, and Norwell and I are last tossing our trash, and he asks me if I’ve been missing my boyfriend.” 

“And you told him ‘yes, I miss him every day, because he’s the best boyfriend ever’,” Finn says. 

“Nah, Norwell and I aren’t confidantes,” Puck says with a snorted laugh. “Took me a moment to realize he was trying to make a joke. Gotta give him a little credit, that’s not one we’ve gotten before, right?” 

“Heh. Yeah.” Finn wraps more of his body around Puck’s. “What’d you tell him?”

“I said, ‘yeah, actually, now that you mention it’, but he thought I was keeping the joke going.” Puck snorts again. “Or maybe he didn’t. He told me to tell you hi, as if you’d know who he was.” 

“Well, hi back to Norwell,” Finn says. 

“That’ll keep him guessing,” Puck says, nodding and half-smiling. “I should’ve said that I missed you so much they were all lucky I hadn’t exploded on them.” 

“Like you exploded on me?” Finn asks, lazily wiping his hand on the blankets on the other side of Puck. 

“Less coming, more yelling,” Puck answers. 

“Can’t wait till we’re back home and you can do both.”

“It’ll be better after the preseason,” Puck says. “Then we’ll be at home two nights a week. My feet’ll be so warm.” 

“Yeah, and I’ll be so much more comfortable with my lumpy Puck-mattress back,” Finn says. “You gonna sleep now?”

“Yeah, probably,” Puck says, sighing and closing his eyes. “I’ll be here when you get done tomorrow.” 

“Okay,” Finn says. He lies still, listening to Puck breathing, until the breaths turn into light snores. Finn plants a kiss on the side of Puck’s neck, wraps himself more tightly around him, and closes his eyes. 

Puck wakes him up the next morning, shaking his shoulder gently and whispering. “I made coffee.” 

“You’re the devil,” Finn grumbles. “You came up from Georgia to steal my soul and make me play the fiddle.”

“Carolina, actually, and no fiddle, just football.” Puck says. “Maybe your soul, though.” 

“How much coffee?”

“A lot of coffee.” Puck leans over and kisses Finn. “Plus you get a nice view while you get ready this morning.” 

“Okay. I’m awake, but only ’cause you promised me a view,” Finn says, sitting up and glaring at Puck, who is still naked, which means he’s already delivering on the view.

“How have you not been late for the bus every day?” Puck asks curiously, handing Finn a cup of coffee and standing mostly still in front of Finn. 

“I’m not usually working so hard once I get back to the hotel,” Finn says. He drinks his coffee and takes a nice, long look at Puck’s naked body. “You’ll still be here when I get back?”

“I’ll be here,” Puck promises. “I might leave to get lunch later, though, and then come back.” 

“As long as I get to see you,” Finn says. 

“I promise. We made it through the worst stretch, remember?” 

“It’s hard to remember when you’ve gotta fly out the next morning.”

Puck makes a face. “Yeah, but that’s almost twenty-four hours from now. I’ll sneak you a beer for tonight if you get to the bus on time.” 

“I’m drinking my coffee!” Finn says, holding up his mug. “See? Your nice view got me motivated.”

“You need a picture every morning to go with the nightly ones?” 

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

Puck grins. “I’ll see what I can manage. Maybe I’ll tell one of the guys in my suite my private trainer needs full-body pics to evaluate.” 

“Does that mean I can assign you more workouts? ’Cause I’m really digging on how your butt looks right now,” Finn says. “I’d probably have you keep working on that.”

“More butt work, check,” Puck says, pivoting in place. “Happy?” 

“Can you go up on your toes a little? For definition.”

Puck laughs but complies. “Get dressed, buttface.” 

“Okay, buttface, but only ’cause you’ll still be here when I get back. Otherwise I’d just lie here in bed all day and be sad, and they’d have to come get me with a crane through the window,” Finn says. 

“That’d be a pretty cool headline, at least.” 

“Sad Sack Quarterback something,” Finn says. “There should be more rhyming, but I’ve only had this one cup of coffee and you’re making me get dressed.”

Puck grins and goes up on his toes again. “Didn’t I tell you? There’s another cup of coffee ready for the bus.”

“See, this is why I love you. It’s all the bribery, plus the butt. Love that butt, squishyface.”

“Definitely thanking the trainers,” Puck says. “I’ll be here tonight. I promise.” 

“I know. You and your buttface, buttface,” Finn says. He gives Puck a kiss and starts getting dressed. 

On the bus to the training facility in Berea, Mayle sits down next to Finn with a wide smile. He raises and lowers his eyebrows a few times as he keeps smiling. When he speaks, though, his voice is relatively quiet. “Had a visitor last night, Hudson?” 

“Huh? Why?” Finn asks. 

“Remember, I’m your neighbor,” Mayle says. “Usually you’re pretty quiet after we get back to the hotel.” 

“Ohhhh,” Finn says, feeling himself blushing faintly. “Yeah. I did.”

Mayle laughs for a few seconds. “Good for you. That going to be a thing during the season? Like away games, I mean.” 

Finn gives Mayle a sheepish grin. “Uh. Yeah, possibly.”

“Makes sense if I’m usually one of your neighbors, then,” Mayle says. “Just let me know if you have any extra tickets when we play the Bengals.”

“Yeah, sure, thanks,” Finn says. “Why Bengals?”

“I’m from Cincy,” Mayle says with a shrug. “Most of my family are still Bengals fans, even.” 

“Cool. Sounds like a deal,” Finn says, holding up his fist. Mayle bumps it with his own, settling back into his seat. 

Mayle nods a little. “You’re alright, Hudson.”

“Thanks, Mayle. You, too.”


	6. Chapter 6

Finn hadn’t lied any of the times he told Puck he wasn’t coming out. None of those times were lies, because, for starters, he _wasn’t_ coming out right at that exact moment. Also, he didn’t really connect the stuff he felt to what Puck was talking about, at least, not at first. For the past few years, Finn had just assumed that everybody felt for their best friends what he felt for Puck. Of course he liked spending all his time with Puck, and of course he liked Puck touching him, because they were best friends.

The first time Finn sniffed Puck and liked it, he didn’t think about it as being a weird thing, either, any more than liking to touch Puck a lot. People who are important to each other like how each other smells, he figured, like how moms like the way their babies smell, or how he could still a little bit remember liking the way his dad used to smell. All it meant was that he and Puck were super-important to each other, which, duh. No big surprise there.

It wasn't until Finn's freshman year that he realized he wasn't smelling Puck in an important person way. He just liked how Puck smelled, even the post-practice heavy sweat funk. Maybe especially that. After every practice, he had to resist a feeling that originally started out as just wanting to follow Puck around and smell him, but that quickly turned into wanting to pin Puck against a locker and press his face into the side of Puck’s neck and breathe deeply, possibly while Finn touched Puck with as much of his body as human possible at the same time. 

Finn wanted to smell a guy. He wanted to touch a guy. He wanted to lick the sweat off the side of a guy’s neck. No, none of that was exactly true. Sure, any random guy compared to any random girl, but specifically Puck. Finn specifically wanted to do all those things to Puck. 

Okay, maybe kinda gay. Maybe kinda a _lot_ gay. 

By the summer before sophomore Finn realized he had started going out of his way to touch Puck or get Puck to touch him, including picking fights with Puck for the purpose of one of them wrestling the other to the ground until Carole told them to knock it off. Puck was bound to figure it out eventually, especially when Finn had a bad habit of putting his face against Puck’s neck while he had him pinned and taking a deep breath. 

Puck kept asking Finn if he planned to come out. Finn kept saying no, and usually followed the no with tackling Puck. It didn’t feel like a lie exactly, but it definitely wasn’t the truth. 

When two-a-days started up again for the season, Finn thought he might tell Puck soon. The biggest problem, as Finn saw it, was figuring out exactly how to word it so stuff wouldn’t get weird between them. The worst that could happen would be if Puck decided he couldn’t hang out with Finn anymore, so Finn really had to be careful about how he said it. He actually worked on his wording for a while, writing it down on a notecard and practicing it in front of a mirror. One time, Puck almost caught him practising in one of the locker room mirrors, but Finn managed to convince him he was just doing one of those positive self-talk things like from that workshop that their moms both went to when Finn and Puck were in 7th grade. 

On the third day of two-a-days, between the first and second two-a-day, Finn decided he needed to go ahead and tell Puck, before he chickened out completely. He’d gotten his script about as perfect as it was going to get, and he’d practiced it enough that he could do it without the notecard, so after they ate lunch, but before they put on the TV, Finn decided to just go for it.

“So, bro,” Finn began, forcing himself to stick to his script, even though it already sounded kind of stupid, now that he was saying it out loud. “I have something important I need to tell you.”

Puck leaned his head against the back of the sofa. “Are you coming out?” he asked lazily. “Finally?” 

“Oh my God!” Finn said, and then, “Oh. Well, shit. Yeah, I am, actually.”

Puck froze and then slowly sat up before turning his head towards Finn. “You’re coming out.” 

“Well. Yeah.”

“Well holy shit,” Puck said, looking amazed.

“Yeah. I had a whole script of what I was gonna say, but I didn’t think about the fact you’d probably want to say something, too, so now I’ve kinda lost my place in the script,” Finn said. 

“Yeah, you would have had to duct-tape me,” Puck said. “So are you gay or bi?” 

“Gay, I guess,” Finn said. “I mean, I’m pretty sure, anyway.”

“Okay. Cool.” Puck paused then shrugged. “I’m bi.” 

“Oh,” Finn said, sitting back against the sofa. 

“Are you mad?” 

“Why would I be mad?” Finn asked. “You didn’t ever say, I mean, but I didn’t either until now, so I guess it probably wouldn’t be very fair if I got mad at you for not doing something I didn’t do either.”

“Okay.” Puck stayed quiet for at least a full minute. “I didn’t, you know. _Know_ about you. I was sorta…” He trailed off and was quiet for another thirty seconds, then mumbled something under his breath.

“Sorta what?”

“Hoping?” Puck finally said, still more quietly than before.

“Yeah?” Finn asked. “Hoping for what?”

“That you would.”

“That I would what?”

Puck didn’t say anything for another couple of minutes. “Stop saying no when I asked.” 

“Oh, okay,” Finn said. “Well, I did, so… we’re still cool? ’Cause, I mean, I’m still cool, if you are.”

“Yeah, we’re cool,” Puck said. He nodded and then turned his head, staring at Finn. 

Finn grinned, a little uncomfortably, since Puck kept staring at him. “What? Is my face weird or something?”

Puck started to smile and shook his head. “I like your face.” 

Finn’s smile got bigger. “Yeah? I like your face, too.”

Puck’s eyes widened, like he suddenly realized what he’d said. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Finn said. “Even if you’re kind of a buttface.”

“Why am I a buttface?” Puck demanded, frowning at Finn. 

Finn shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “You just are. I don’t know what makes you that way.”

“This is the thanks I get for all of my asking and support?” Puck said super dramatically. 

“What other thanks did you want?” Finn asked. 

“Not being called a buttface!”

“How about this instead?” Finn asked, diving at Puck and tackling him down onto the sofa. After scrubbing Puck’s face against the cushions for a second, Finn rolled them both onto the floor with a loud thump.

“Hey!” Puck said, his voice muffled, and he grabbed Finn’s shoulders, trying to roll them over again. Finn braced his leg against the front of the sofa, keeping Puck pinned.

“I’m showing you my thankfulness!” Finn insisted. “I’m super thankful.”

“How is this thanking me?” Puck asked, his face mashed sideways against Finn. “This is tackling me.” 

“It’s _hugging_ you, not tackling. Duh.”

“Are you sure?” Puck said skeptically. “It feels like tackling. It doesn’t feel like hugging.” 

“Oh,” Finn said. Not letting Puck up from the floor, or moving his own leg away from the sofa, Finn put his hands on the sides of Puck’s face and squished his cheeks. “How about now? I’m hugging your buttface.”

Puck tried to make a face at Finn, and then he poked both sides of Finn’s butt with his hands. “Squishy butt,” he mumbled. 

“Takes a butt to know a butt,” Finn said. He squished Puck’s cheeks a little harder, making Puck’s mouth pucker up funny. Puck’s hands squeezed Finn’s butt while Puck kept trying to make a face at Finn. The more Puck tried to make the face, though, the more his mouth puckered up, until Finn finally leaned down and kissed him once, lightly, on his lips. 

Puck squeezed Finn’s butt again and stared up Finn. He started to try to say something, then stopped when it came out mostly garbled. Finn just laughed and unsquished Puck’s cheeks a little, feeling his own face get a little red. “You want to?” Puck said. 

Finn nodded his head slowly. “Yeah, if you want to,” he said. “If you don’t, then I was just kidding.”

Puck grinned for a few seconds, then grabbed the back of Finn’s head and pulled him down, kissing him right away, all hard and sloppy. Finn kept hold of Puck’s face, though he stopped squishing, and kissed back just as hard. Puck pushed his tongue past Finn’s lips, and his hand pulled on Finn’s hair, changing the angle of Finn’s head a little bit. Finn felt Puck’s tongue against his. It felt better than he ever would have thought, and he tasted a tiny bit of barbecue flavor from their chips at lunch, which would probably sound gross if Finn tried to explain it to somebody else, but was actually really cool.

“Thought about this,” Puck muttered after they kiss for a long time. 

“For real?” Finn asked. He propped himself up on his elbows so he could look at Puck. “Like, with me? Or just kissing in general?”

“You. Duh,” Puck said. 

Finn smiled widely. “Well, how’m I supposed to know that? All you ever did was ask if I was coming out. You didn’t ever _say_.”

Puck stuck his tongue out. “You probably would have freaked out if I’d said something in eighth grade.” 

“You wanted to kiss me in eighth grade?” Finn asked. “Aww. That’s so sweet!”

“Shut up,” Puck said, and he stuck his tongue out again before grabbing Finn and kissing him again.

 

Puck liked sophomore year. He and Finn were on varsity, officially the best players at McKinley in Puck’s mind. People moved aside for them in the hallways, they skipped the occasional class without teachers saying anything, and despite the overall skill level of their teammates, the football team won at least _some_ games. Sophomore year at school went well. 

Sophomore year not at school went well, too. When Puck and Finn were at either of their houses and no one was around, they kissed. Sometimes one of them still tackled the other before they started kissing, and sometimes they sat down on the sofa or the bed, and on one Saturday in the middle of September, while Carole was gone and they were watching OSU shut out the Toledo Rockets, Puck pushed Finn against the refrigerator door and kissed him there. 

Without really discussing it, they had decided to keep everything compartmentalized, and Puck knew that was probably best. He also knew it was probably going to get harder and more complicated at some point, but sophomore year wasn’t that point, and he decided to enjoy sophomore year. 

McKinley lost to Findlay, then to Central Catholic, which meant they had to win against Piqua to keep any hope of a winning season, and Puck half-heartedly punched his locker while they were getting dressed. 

“Dammit,” he said before he punched the locker, then “Ouch!” 

“Did you hurt your hand on your locker again?” Finn asked. 

“You don’t let me punch the defense,” Puck said. “What else am I supposed to punch?”

“Nobody,” Finn said. “Do you need me to kiss it?”

“Are you trying to start something?” Puck asked. “And someone needs to punch the defense!” 

“Maybe I’m trying to start something.”

Puck grinned. “We can congratulate each other after we _win_ tonight.” 

Someone still needed to punch at least some of the defense in Puck’s opinion, but on the offensive side of the game, it went well. Puck didn’t know the official stats when he came off the field, but he knew they were good for both him and Finn, and he jumped on Finn’s back like he usually did. 

“We gotta get the video of this one!” Puck yelled in Finn’s ear. 

“Our websites are looking so awesome!” Finn yelled back. 

“I think you threw for, what, two hundred yards?” Puck asked. “That was _awesome_!”

“Eh, it was okay,” Finn said. “But you ran, like, _so_ far! And you were so fast, too!”

“Fuck Tanaka!” Puck said, making sure not to say it _too_ loud. “Are you sure I can’t yell at Makowski for that lousy block in the third quarter?” 

“Okay, okay, you can yell at him,” Finn said, laughing and shaking his head. 

“Good, ’cause that Piqua guy shouldn’t have gotten so close to you,” Puck grumbled as he dropped off Finn’s back. “We can still pull a winning season out, enough so we’re not laughingstocks if we go to camps next summer.” They had looked at enough websites to know they needed to go to a camp, and Puck guessed the better their team, the better off they’d be when they went to camp. 

“Camp’s gonna be so cool,” Finn said. “We’re gonna rock that camp.”

“We’re gonna rock everything,” Puck agreed as they got to their lockers. “We should get our moms to ask Figgins if he can get a new football coach.” 

“Ooh, yeah, we should,” Finn said. He tossed Puck a fresh T-shirt and pair of underwear from the bag of clean clothes.

“Thanks.” Puck pulled off his uniform and dropped everything but his pads in the bag for dirty clothes. “I can’t remember if it’s my house or yours tonight,” he admitted. 

“Mine,” Finn said. “Mom’s getting us a movie.”

“We could watch it on your computer, upstairs,” Puck said.

“I don’t think it’s a sexy movie, dude,” Finn said. 

Puck shrugged. “So? It could have boring parts.” 

“Boring parts we could make out during?”

“That was my plan, yeah,” Puck said. “Good plan?” 

“Great plan. You’re the best planner, you know that?” Finn said. 

“Best planner, best running back with the best quarterback?” 

Finn grinned at Puck. “Best everything. You’re just the best.”

Puck grinned back and finished getting dressed as fast as he could before they headed out to the parking lot where Carole was waiting. He still didn’t stare at Finn too much when other people were around—especially not in the locker room—but he took advantage of Finn not minding and glanced at Finn from time to time as they walked outside.

When they got to Finn’s, Carole gave them a two-liter of pop and some chips, then pulled a DVD out of her purse. “Let me know how it is,” she said. “I asked the worker at the store and she said it was good. _Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist_.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Puck said, tucking the DVD under his chin and heading up the stairs behind Finn. After Finn closed the door and Puck dropped the food on Finn’s bed, Puck locked the door and grinned. “Told you she might get a movie with boring parts, right?”

“Are you sure it has boring parts?” Finn asked. 

“Are you sure you care if it’s actually boring?” 

Finn laughed a little as he shook his head. “Not really. It could probably be the awesomest movie ever and I’d still make out with you.”


	7. Chapter 7

Ten days between the last preseason game—Steelers for Puck and Bears for Finn—and the start of the regular season is enough time to have three full nights at home. When Puck gets on the plane to head back to Charlotte and move in at the Residence Inn, he pulls off the Tigers hat, stows his carry-on, and then heads into the small airplane bathroom for a few minutes. The hard part, Puck reminds himself, is over. He’ll be back home in a week.

After two days of practice in Charlotte, just down the road from the stadium, the entire team gets on the plane to head to Tampa Bay. It’s one of the only weeks out of the entire season that the Browns game and the Panthers game don’t overlap, which means that in theory, Puck and Finn could watch each other. Since it’s the first week of the season, they’re both rookies, and neither of them are first-string, it probably just means that they can each watch the other’s game and hope to see each other on the sideline in a frame or two. 

There’s something familiar and almost comforting about the away game procedures. Puck’s used to away games from Louisville, and he thinks he’s less concerned about it being the first regular-season NFL game than he would be if it were in Charlotte. The team is warming up during a lot of the Browns game, but when they get back into the locker room, someone turns on the TVs, and Puck walks around until he finds the one with the Eagles vs Browns. 

“Haven’t put in any second-stringers, have they?” Puck asks the guys already watching. 

“Nah, none that I seen,” says Harper, the safety. “You looking for your bro?”

“You never know, right?” Puck says. “Hell, the Eagles play a different QB every quarter.”

Harper laughs. “Yeah, guess that’s about right. He’s number 5, right?”

“Since pee-wee. We were the St. Rita’s Colts the first couple of years.” 

“I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Harper says. “Let you know if I see him.”

Puck nods. “Cool.” He goes back over to his locker area, stretching a little on the off-chance that he gets put in for a few downs. Considering the Bucs are doing just as poorly post-Winston as they were pre-Winston, and no one thinks his third year will be the charm, it’s a distant but distinct possibility. 

It’s close to time for the team to leave the locker room when Puck hears Harper call out over the noise. “Hey, Puckerman! Your bro’s on the field!”

“Yeah?” Puck pushes over towards that screen. “How’d he manage that?” Because Finn _is_ on the field, about to take a snap. 

“Manziel got sacked. They’re checking out his shoulder.” 

“Never has learned to scramble,” Puck says absently, watching the screen. Finn ends up taking two snaps, the first for a short-yardage completion and the second a run that ultimately results in zero yardage, though that doesn’t really have anything to do with Finn’s part of the play. The Browns send Manziel back out after that, his shoulder apparently fine, and Finn trots back off the field as the Panthers get herded out of the locker room. 

Puck doesn’t know if Finn’s unlikely regular season debut makes Puck playing more or less likely, but by the end of the first quarter, Puck starts to suspect that it’s likely. The Panthers are already up, 17–0, when the first quarter ends, and sure enough, before the end of the first half, Puck plays a few downs. 

Somehow Puck had expected a few moments during halftime to sneak a look at his phone and send Finn a quick message, but it doesn’t happen. The running back coach pulls Puck aside near the end of halftime, telling him to spend his time on the sidelines reviewing a few specific plays. It doesn’t guarantee Puck’ll touch the ball, but late in the third, he gets put in on a full series, carrying the ball four yards before the Bucs get it together enough to stop him. 

Like he’d expected, the weirdest part is not having Finn right there at the end of the game, and since they’re in Tampa Bay, Puck can’t get away from the rest of the team until everyone’s back at the hotel. Puck ignores his roommate and goes out on the small balcony as he calls Finn, tapping his foot while he waits for Finn to answer. 

“Hey, buttface,” Finn says when he answers. “I watched you play. It was kinda weird.”

“Seriously weird,” Puck agrees. “I barely got to see you play before we got shooed out of the locker room.” 

“It was like watching our tapes, only I wasn’t on them, too.”

“Yeah, exactly. I would have gotten that carry over the line at least,” Puck says, even though he’s not completely sure he would have. “Did they make you do any press? First regular-season snap shit?” 

“Yeah. Not very much, though,” Finn says. “‘What was it like?’ and shit like that.”

“I think the weirdest thing might be how it’s not as different as I thought it’d be. It’s weirder that you aren’t here than it is that it’s the NFL, you know?” 

“Yeah. It’s still going to work. Nice to not have to balance classes, too, but work is work,” Finn says. 

“God, I am so glad to be done with classes,” Puck agrees. “I’m going to send you something you can have hang off your shoulders after a game, maybe. You think it’s too early for me to start some kind of weird signature move dangling off the sidelines or the tunnel? ’Cause that was weird, too.” 

“Maybe a dance or a hand gesture, like how Manny used to do the money thing.”

“Oh yeah, we’re great at dancing. And the only other hand gesture I can think of probably isn’t a great idea,” Puck says. 

Finn laughs loudly. “Yeah, that’s probably not gonna catch on!”

“Yeah, well, _you_ like it.” 

“Well, duh. Of course I like it, when you’re doing it for real,” Finn says. “On either of us.”

“Oh, you need me to send you a video?” Puck asks. “I could buy a tripod, I guess.” 

“Should’ve had you leave me with a bunch back when we were at training camp.”

“Yeah, just no lens flare, right?” Puck’s roommate knocks on the balcony door and looks like he’s gesturing about something, even if Puck’s not entirely sure what. “Hey, but I’ll be home tomorrow night.” 

“Guess that means time to restock the fridge, huh?” Finn says. “Miss you.”

“Miss you too. You’re already home, right? I think there’s some kind of team shit I have to find out about. Probably flight info for in the morning.” 

“Yeah, I’ll hit the Food Market after you send me the flight stuff, pick us up something hot for dinner, too.”

“Maybe I’ll beat you home, then,” Puck says. “Love you, buttface.” 

“Love you, too, buttfuce.”

Puck ends the call just as his roommate knocks on the sliding glass door again, and Puck decides he probably should try to remember the guy’s name, especially since he’ll probably end up rooming with him at the rest of the season’s away games. 

The team thing ends up being informing them that they’ll be expected to lift before they leave and do game film on the flight, all of which is fine with Puck. It has to be done, and the quicker everything gets taken care of in Charlotte, the quicker he can get back on a different plane and head home. Plus, being a morning person comes in handy when the hotel sends out the team-ordered wake up calls and Puck has to roll out of bed. 

While everyone’s lifting, the screens in the room are turned to either NFL Network or ESPN, and on both channels, Puck hears snippets of stories about Finn having ‘broken new ground’. The NFL, Puck figures, probably is glad they can tout their success at something, socially-speaking, but part of him’s amused about a six or seven yard pass being considered groundbreaking. 

“Oh, Finn’ll love it, a whole montage,” Puck says as he waits for his next set on the leg press. It is, somehow, a full montage, with footage of Finn entering the field with the rest of the Browns, an official picture, and then at least three different angles of Finn’s pass, two of them repeated in slow-motion. 

“Doesn’t like the attention?” Reaves asks as he gets up.

Puck shakes his head. “Like he says, you’d think the way he plays would be more important.”

“I’m guessing you knew before he came out,” Reaves says. 

“I might’ve known before he did,” Puck says with a laugh. It’s probably inaccurate, since he’d been more hoping than knowing, but it does the trick, and Reaves and the other guys nearby laugh, too. 

By a week and not quite twelve hours later, Puck realizes that the main thing he didn’t anticipate about the NFL was how blasé it would make him about flying. Fly to an away game, fly to Charlotte, fly home, fly back to Charlotte and prep for another game, and now he’s at the Charlotte airport again, fresh off a game against the Saints the afternoon before. He’s actually at the airport early enough to make the flight to Cleveland that leaves before his own, which is why he’s standing in line at the counter to check if he can swap flights. 

Luck or something is with him, and he gets the ticket exchanged for the flight leaving just fifteen minutes later, which means he has to hurry through security and boarding. It’s worth it, though, when he gets off the plane in Cleveland closer to daylight than full dark, and he calls Finn as he walks through the airport. 

“Guess where I am?” Puck says as soon as he hears Finn pick up, not even giving Finn a chance to say anything. 

“Charlotte airport?”

“I’m in _an_ airport, but not Charlotte. Switched my flight,” Puck says. 

“Oh, shit! Come home!” Finn says, sounding like he might run to the airport to meet Puck. 

“Are you even home yet, or are you still driving back from Berea?” 

“Still driving! Need a ride?”

“Sure,” Puck says. “I’ll stand out near the taxis.” 

“See you in just a few!”

Puck decides that it’s better to be too discreet than not enough, or something like that, so he tosses on the Tigers hat and walks outside, starting to watch the vehicles driving by even though, logically, it’ll be at least a few more minutes. It ends up being around five before Finn pulls to a stop in front of him. 

“Hey,” Puck says, climbing in and managing to close the door at the same time he leans over and kisses Finn. 

“Hey!” Finn says, once they’re done kissing, which takes a few seconds. “Good flight?”

“Yeah, ’cause it was earlier than I expected. You plan anything for dinner?” 

“I was gonna pick up a chicken and some sides at the Food Market deli,” Finn says. “You want to do something else?”

Puck shakes his head. “Sounds good. Anyone there figure out who you are yet?” 

“Nope. I’m incognito!”

“So we’ll just be two incognito guys, doing the grocery shopping?” 

Finn looks over at Puck and grins as he pulls away from the curb, towards the interstate. “Yup. Don’t blow my cover.”

By Thursday evening after practice, Puck’s two nights in Cleveland feel longer ago than they should, and practice is completely focused on that Sunday’s game with the Giants. Puck knows his own time on field will be similar to or less than it was with the Bucs and the Saints, though if the Giants play like they did in 2013 and 2014, it might be just as much time with his hands on the ball. He’s supposed to review some plays, eat a good dinner, and then he’ll call Finn once they’re both close to done for the night. Puck turns on the television first, though, and sorts through the groceries that he ordered for the hotel to deliver. Living in a hotel room is weird, but kind of fun at the same time, since he doesn’t get to live at home. 

Puck finally settles on some kind of beef dish that’s supposed to serve three, along with some vegetables and a salad, and he sits down in front of the news. Even though Puck had thought it would have died down faster, nearly a week after the start of the season, the NFL Network had still been making a big-ass deal about how Finn was now not only the first openly gay man to make a fifty-three player final roster in the NFL, but also the first to take a snap in a regular-season game. Puck can’t imagine how much they’ll freak out the first time Finn’s playing on a team that makes it to a playoff game. 

He watches the final minutes of the local news, learning it’s going to keep being hot, then flips to SportsCenter for awhile before settling on one of the entertainment-gossip shows. It’s what Finn’s probably watching, if he’s home, and if he’s not, maybe Puck’ll see something interesting to pass on. 

Most of it is uninteresting, at least for the first ten or fifteen minutes, and Puck eats another helping of the beef stuff and the vegetables, then gets out some dessert. He sits back down with dessert as the reporter says, “And now for an NFL rumor.” 

“The NFL? What kind of rumor?” the person in-studio says in his fake-interested tone, but the reporter narrating the piece sounds like he does think it’s pretty interesting. 

“Everyone, of course, has been watching the Browns’ Finn Hudson with interest throughout the preseason and making the roster, and there was a lot of coverage about his first plays in the regular season,” the reporter says. “Hudson, aside from coming out, has been almost notoriously closed-mouth about his private life, and clearly prefers to be questioned about his playing ability, not his sexuality or the history he’s making. Just two weeks into the season, however, there are a few rumors starting to swirl about his love life.” 

The screen flashes to a picture of Finn’s coming-out press conference, then a couple of shots of him reporting for what looks like, to Puck, OTAs and training camp, plus a shot of him trotting onto the field against the Eagles during week one. There’s a back-and-forth between the in-studio guy and the reporter that involves a lot of fake surprise and restating what’s already been said, and then the reporter goes back to monologuing. 

“We don’t, of course, have any details about who Mr. Hudson’s gentlemen friend might be, but our source suggested that it’s been clear to some members of the team that he has regular contact with someone special. If this is the case, I think everyone certainly hopes he’ll feel comfortable being open about the relationship.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Puck says out loud, making a face between bites as he stares at the television. “You say that, but it’s not like anyone’s given us a reason to think that’s how it really is.” The truth is that most of their press over the years has been about how long they’ve played together, even after Finn came out. After all, a gay player who seemingly isn’t dating anyone is only interesting a few times a year, and only really when they’d been getting ready for the draft, at that. Best friends are interesting every game they team up to score a touchdown. 

“I suppose people are going to have some questions about who he could be dating,” the in-studio person says. “Did the source mention that?” 

The reporter laughs for only a few seconds. “No, our source did not. The only thing I think we can be sure of is that Mr. Hudson isn’t dating anyone else on the Browns team.” 

“Yeah, he’d better not be, unless I get traded,” Puck says. He snorts as they continue going back and forth with speculation about whether Finn would date a fellow athlete, a celebrity of some other kind, or someone with no ties to fame at all. It’s amusing in a weird sort of way, Puck thinks, that no one’s ever speculated about the two of them. It probably helps that their public behavior has been fixed for years, but sometimes it seems like willful heads in the sand, staring right at the very best candidate available and deciding no for no particular reason. It isn’t like Puck’s been even pretending to date anyone, and he doesn’t have any close female friends. The inability to focus on him as a option would be annoying if he thought about it for too long. As it is, it works for the time being. They’re both on the roster and getting a few minutes of playing time each week, which is pretty good for third-rounders in their first season. 

The story finally wraps up with a final shot of Finn on the sidelines, probably at the Bengals game on Sunday, and Puck washes up his utensils, turning off the television as he passes it. He’ll review those plays and then finally pick up the phone and call Finn. Today he can tease Finn about his mystery relationship. 

 

When he hears his phone, Finn sets _Climate in Chaos_ down on the bed next to him and picks up the phone. 

“Hey, buttface,” Finn says. “You in bed already?”

“Yeah, thought I’d put aside my usual schedule of staying up until two am,” Puck says. “You?” 

“Yeah. I was just lying here reading. I picked up a new book in the Cincy airport, but I hadn’t had a chance to start it yet.”

“Oh no, what’s this one about?” Puck asks. “Snow tornadoes?” 

“Climate change causing mass exodus from the coasts into the Midwest,” Finn says. “By the way, we oughta consider buying some rental properties around here, just in case. I think we could really clean up when the mass exodus happens.”

“Or we could just do it ’cause it’d be a pretty easy way to keep some income flowing every month for years,” Puck says. “Maybe an apartment building. Maybe _our_ apartment building.” 

“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea!”

“We don’t really need anything bigger, anyway.” Puck pauses for a few seconds, then says “So have you been watching your gossip shows? Or just reading?” 

“I got some cleaning done. It was getting a little dusty in here,” Finn says. 

“Aww, you missed it then.” Puck laughs. “According to a source, you’ve got a special someone.” 

Finn laughs, too. “Oh yeah? Somebody specific?”

“The source was pretty confident that whoever it is, it’s not someone else on the Browns. They’re right about that, I guess.” 

“Yeah, if you were on the Browns, that would solve one-hundred-percent of our problems,” Finn says. “Did they have any details at all? Pictures or anything?”

“Nah. I don’t think they even realized it was another NFL player they were talking about. I’m almost insulted,” Puck says. “Why not me?” 

“Guess you just don’t look gay enough, squishyface.”

“Oh, yeah, ’cause people are all the time looking at you and knowing right away,” Puck retorts. “You think we should take pity on TMZ and set up a couple of photos?”

“Do you want to?” Finn asks. “I want to if you do.”

“We’ve always been trying to control the flow of information, right? Better if we know what pictures they’re getting than them taking us by surprise,” Puck says. “Since it sounds like their source is someone in your locker room, all you’d have to do is start talking loudly about the airport on Monday evening, probably.” 

“We’ll need different hats, though. I don’t want to lose my Food Market cover! I like shopping without people bothering me.”

“Hang on,” Puck says. “If we’re trying to _get_ them to take a picture, you can just wear a Browns hat, right? So probably I should just order a Browns hat and wear it.” 

“You think they’ll be excited or disappointed when they figure out it’s you?” Finn asks. 

“That probably depends on how close we’re standing. Hey, I could get a knit hat with a pompom. You think they’d think that looked more gay?” 

Finn laughs. “I don’t know. I never really thought about pompoms as a gay thing or a straight thing.”

“I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever been trying to look straight,” Puck says. “And I just think rainbows and… what else even looks gay? Anyway, rainbows probably aren’t my thing.” 

“I don’t know. Remember how I used to get the ‘but you don’t look gay’ in interviews?” Finn laughs again. “Pretty sure if they got a camera in here when you were home, we’d both look gay.”

“Can’t even be Spandex, because we already wear football pants. I guess it’s nakedness.” 

“I can wear one of my Under Armour shirts to the airport with my Browns hat.”

“And then I can poke your butt.” Puck pauses for a moment. “There, I ordered a hat. It’ll be here in plenty of time for Monday, if you want to start talking loudly in the locker room tomorrow.” 

“I like it when you poke my butt,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, I know you do, squishy butt.” 

“Yeah,” Finn sighs. “Come home soon.”

“I’ll be there,” Puck promises. “Drop some hints for our TMZ friends and I’ll bring you something funny again.” 

“Just bring me you.”

Puck laughs softly. “I am funny, at least.” 

“Yeah, you’re the funniest,” Finn says. “Love you, buttface.”

“Love you,” Puck echoes. 

“Are you asleep now?” Finn asks quietly. When Puck doesn’t answer, Finn smiles and keeps listening to Puck breath for a while before ending the call and picking his book up again. 

The following day in the locker room, Mayle comes up to Finn while he’s still getting dressed. “I just wanted to be sure you know it wasn’t me, bro,” Mayle says quietly. 

Finn shakes his head slightly. “Didn’t think it was, but thanks for saying so.”

“Is TMZ gonna cause any problems for you?” Mayle asks. 

“I don’t think so,” Finn says, then he raises his voice. “I just hope they don’t figure out I’m meeting him at the airport on Monday.”

Mayle looks startled for a few seconds, giving Finn an odd look, then appears to catch on and stifles a laugh. “Yeah, that sounds like it would be rough if TMZ showed up here in Cleveland at the airport?” he says, matching Finn’s volume. 

“I’m a very private person. I really don’t want pictures taken of us,” Finn says, at the same volume.

“Absolutely, the airport on Monday evening, you should be able to have your privacy,” Mayle says, maybe even a little louder, and then he thumps Finn’s shoulder pad. “I like you, Hudson,” he says quietly. 

“My boyfriend likes me too,” Finn says, in an equally quiet voice. “Probably not the same way, though.”

Mayle laughs, still quiet. “No, I’d think not. See you on the field,” he says, then heads back towards his own locker.


	8. Chapter 8

By the summer after sophomore year, Puck knew that they had to stop worrying about how they were paying for the recruiting website. Their moms were going to have to figure it out. They only had one website for the two of them, which Puck figured helped a lot. Everyone told them that they wouldn’t get recruited to the same place, but Puck thought some of that was probably a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they didn’t ask, they definitely wouldn’t. 

The time they spent trying to earn money was time they didn’t get to spend working out, running 40s, and going over plays. The time they spent trying to earn money was time they weren’t resting or eating or making out, too, but that wasn’t how Puck pitched it to their moms. They had to practice and work out and go to camps to supplement the attention the website brought. 

Picking what camps to go to was hard enough, Puck had to admit, because they had to make sure every camp they applied to had quarterbacks and running backs and flexible roommate situations. He didn’t mention the roommate thing out loud to Finn, but he was pretty sure that Finn agreed with him. It would have been dumb not to be rooming in the same room when they were at the same camp. 

Three camps for the summer before junior seemed like a good number, especially since one of them was a national 7-on-7 camp that applications had to be approved for. It wasn’t one of the invitation-only camps, but Puck had hopes for the summer before senior year for those. One camp tried to separate them when it came time to assign roommates, but Puck had quickly found someone amenable to swapping, and that had solved that problem. 

By the end of July, Puck and Finn had four invitations each for visits around the upper south and the midwest. Two of the invitations overlapped, and that had made Puck feel pretty smug. They might really get offers to the same school, the way he saw it. No, they didn’t have invitations to SEC schools, but Puck had never thought that was a real possibility for either of them. They wanted schools where they’d get playing time and get noticed, eventually, by NFL scouts. 

Still, they didn’t have so many invitations that they could have ignored any of them, which meant Puck had to get his mom to set up a time for him to visit Minnesota and Cincinnati. It took some wrangling, but eventually they were scheduled for the same days that Finn would be at Indiana and Syracuse. Their two overlapping ones, OSU and Louisville, Carole would take them, and that was settled. Puck knew they’d possibly get more interest after their junior year, especially with even more highlights to add to their website. Their combined recruiting strategy made them memorable. 

Two-a-days were even less fun than usual, solely because of their new coach. By the time the second day of two-a-days was over, though, Puck had felt almost exultant. “She’s going to make all the difference,” Puck told the locker room. “We’re going to win this year. Win games, and win state.” He wasn’t one hundred percent confident of that, but he was pretty damn confident of it. 

The first four games, all wins, made him feel even more confident. He and Finn had teamed up for six touchdowns over the first four games, and all of the film showed them at their best or close to it. Junior year made Puck feel great, and he was still feeling that mix of greatness and confidence when he got home after the next Monday’s practice. 

“Hey, Ma?” Puck said over dinner. 

“Yes, Noah?” 

“Are you still going to be gone this weekend?” Puck asked. After his ma nodded, he tried to look as trustworthy as possible, even though he wasn’t sure how that looked. “Me and Finn are going watch game film and training tapes here on Saturday, okay?” 

His ma raised her eyebrows. “And are the two of you going to be cooking?” Puck shook his head. 

“Why would we cook anything? We might get pizza for dinner.” 

His ma nodded and then frowned. “Is Finn going to sleep over?” 

Puck shrugged. “Maybe.” 

“But there’s not going to be any kind of party?” 

Puck put down his fork. “Ma. You know we don’t really do parties.” They went to a few parties outside football season, but everyone at McKinley knew that Finn and Puck kept to themselves, even if they all thought it was just about football. 

“Fine. No one but Finn.” 

“There won’t be,” Puck promised.

He waited until Thursday to mention it to Finn. He didn’t know if he wanted Finn to guess that part of Puck had those ulterior motive-things, or if he wanted Finn to think it was just like any other time they slept over, but most of Puck’s brain wanted what he’d thought of for years by then, doing more than _just_ making out. 

“Mom’s going to be gone all weekend, but she still said you can come over Saturday so we can watch film, and you can spend the night,” Puck said to Finn after practice. “So bring your stuff and come over as soon as you wake up Saturday morning.” 

“Awesome,” Finn said. “You told her we wouldn’t cook, right?”

“I said we might order pizza for dinner, but no cooking,” Puck agreed. 

“Yeah, that’s good. We’re not really watching film all weekend, right? We get to make out and stuff, too?”

“Uh, I figured we could put some film _on_ ,” Puck said. “But no chance of anyone walking in on us? Hell yeah we’re going to make out.” He paused. “And stuff.” 

“Cool,” Finn said, giving Puck a huge smile. 

Puck grinned back. “I’m the best.” 

Puck woke up earlier than he meant to on Saturday morning, which meant he had to waste time in the empty living room while he waited for Finn. Finally, he heard Carole’s car approaching, and he jumped off the couch, ready to open the door as soon as Carole’s car was gone. 

He swung the door open before Finn knocked. “Hey.” 

“Hey!” Finn said. “Did you order our first pizza of the day yet?”

“Not yet.” Puck closed the door and walked back to the couch. “Do we want to pretend to watch film?” 

“How long do we have to pretend to watch before we can start making out?” Finn asked. He sat on the couch next to Puck. 

“No one’s here. Maybe not at all,” Puck answered, and he slid closer to Finn. 

“We could take some notes later,” Finn said. He grabbed Puck’s shirt to pull him even closer, their mouths together before Puck pushed him back against the arm of the couch. Finn let go of Puck’s shirt and put his arms around him instead. 

Puck kissed Finn harder, and he shifted his weight so he was mostly on top of Finn with his hands under Finn’s T-shirt. “Or I could take your shirt off?” 

“Yeah, that would be cool,” Finn said. “Yours, too.”

“Yeah, okay,” Puck said. He sat up enough for Finn’s arms to start pulling his shirt off, while he tugged at Finn’s, and the two of them ended up slightly tangled before finishing the job, shirts in the floor. Puck stared at Finn. “Awesome.” 

Finn grinned at Puck, putting one hand on Puck’s chest, fingers splayed. “Yeah. I like how you look with no shirt. I like it in the locker room. It’s better here, though.”

“Yeah. Usually I don’t look for too long, ’cause I’d start staring,” Puck said. He changed position again, half lying on top of Finn. “We don’t have to worry about anyone walking in today.”

“You can stare if you want to. I’m staring at you,” Finn said. 

“Yeah.” Puck ran his hand over Finn’s arm and shoulder and then his upper chest. “You want to do something more than stare?” he asked hopefully. 

 

Finn’s face and his upper chest flushed red. “Yeah. You want to?”

“Yeah.” Puck lowered his head, kissing Finn’s chest. “Yeah, I do.” He ran his hand lower down Finn’s chest and over his stomach, then stopped. “Yeah?” 

Finn nodded. His voice sounded a little strained as he said, “Yeah,” but he moved his hand lower on Puck’s chest, too, to the waistband of his shorts, hooking just at the edge of the elastic. “Really yeah.”

“ _Awesome_ ,” Puck said, moving his hand again until his thumb and pointer finger are under the edge of Finn’s shorts. “I’ve maybe thought about this for, like… forever, it feels like.” 

“Yeah? What kind of stuff did you think about?” Finn asked, pushing his fingers farther under Puck’s waistband. “Just this?”

“Can I show you?” Puck asked. Finn nodded hard. Puck grinned and slid his hand down, inside Finn’s boxers, then grabbed Finn’s dick roughly. “This. Like this.” He leaned down and kissed Finn as he started moving his hand. Finn sort of yelped, his dick jumping in Puck’s hand. 

Puck kept moving his hand and kissing Finn, his other hand on Finn’s arm, and almost without meaning to, he started moving the rest of his body with his hand. Finn let out another yelp and shoved his hand into Puck’s shorts. His hand wrapped around Puck’s dick and started moving in time to Puck’s. 

“Oh, shit, this is so cool,” Puck said, dropping his forehead onto Finn’s. 

“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Finn said. “It’s so awesome. Oh my God, why weren’t we doing this ages ago?”

Puck laughed and moved his hand faster while he pushed into Finn’s hand. “And, like, all the time?” 

Finn nodded against Puck’s forehead. “Yeah. We could skip class and go and— oh shit, oh shit, Puck.” He pushed up into Puck’s hand while moving his own hand fast on Puck’s dick. 

“Yeah, just this and football,” Puck said. He tightened his hand on Finn’s dick and squeezed Finn’s arm. Finn let out another yelp and then came all over Puck’s hand. “Oh, _cool_ ,” Puck breathed, leaving his hand where it was around Finn’s dick while he kept pushing into Finn’s hand. It took Finn a few breaths to start moving his hand on Puck’s dick again, but when he did, he moved it faster and lifted his head to kiss Puck hard. 

Puck kissed back just as hard, his hips moving faster and with more force until he came, practically collapsing on top of Finn with their hands still in each other’s shorts. Finn pressed his face into Puck’s neck, panting.

“That was so awesome. _So_ awesome,” Finn said. “I love you so much.”

“Yeah. God, I made you do that,” Puck said, feeling like he figures smoking pot would feel. “Love you too.” 

“Yeah. You made me do that, and it was awesome, and I made you do that, too,” Finn said. 

“Maybe the most awesome thing ever.” Puck pushed himself up a little and grinned. “Can I take your shorts off now?” 

Finn laughed. “Yeah. They’re sorta gross now, anyway.”

“Plus we can do more staring,” Puck said. He raised himself up and then knelt on the couch, pulling on Finn’s shorts and boxers at the same time. Finn lifted his hips to let everything slide off easily. 

“I want to stare at you until my mom comes to get me,” Finn said. “Can we stay naked until then?”

“I thought she wasn’t coming back until tomorrow?” Puck stood up long enough to kick his own shorts off, then knelt between Finn’s legs again, staring at Finn. 

“Uh, _yeah_ , buttface. I want to stay naked until she comes to get me tomorrow. _Duh._ ”

Puck laughed and put his hand on Finn’s thigh. “Even more awesome.” 

“You think we can go again?” Finn asked. “I’m probably ready in like two minutes.”

“We can probably go like four times in an hour,” Puck said. “That was even hotter than I thought it would be.” 

Finn put his hands on Puck’s hips and gripped them tight. “We could do other stuff, too.”

“Yeah? Have you thought of stuff too?” 

Finn nodded. “Yeah. Not just with my hands.” He turned a little bit red again, ducking his head. “And, yeah. Also about… you know.”

“You want to tell me what you thought about?” Puck asked. “Or you want to just show me?” 

“I kinda thought about— about, you know. Fucking. You.”

Puck felt his breathing get a little shallower and faster. “You—do we have stuff we could use?” 

“Not, like, _official_ stuff,” Finn said. “We could walk to the drug store, right?”

“Yeah. Let’s do that,” Puck said, nodding as he spoke. 

“You know what kind of stuff we should buy?”

“Probably just KY, right?” Puck said. He stood up and picked up their T-shirts. “You can borrow a pair of shorts.” 

“Yeah,” Finn said. “We can get pop and candy, too.”

Puck grinned. “Awesome.” They got dressed and walked down to the Rite Aid, and agreed on the way to get enough food for lunch while they were there. After they got their food, they found the aisle with the KY, and Puck stood in front of the section.

“Do we need condoms?” he finally whispered to Finn after staring for awhile. 

“Well, it’s not like you can get pregnant,” Finn said. “Or me, either.”

Puck snorted. “Yeah. What about diseases? You don’t have any weird diseases, do you?” 

“No! Do you?”

“How would I have a weird disease you didn’t have?” Puck asked. “I think maybe we don’t need any condoms.” 

“Maybe we should get two things of the KY, though. You know. Just in case,” Finn said. 

“Maybe one KY and one Astroglide? In case we like one more than the other?” Puck suggested. 

Finn pointed to another spot on the shelf. “Get that other kind of KY, too. We should try lots of stuff, right? To find the best.”

Puck grabbed all three and threw them in the basket before starting to head towards the check-out counter. “I’m going to have to make Ma go out of town every weekend.”

 

“Finn!” Carole yelled up the stairs. “You’ve got more mail! You didn’t tell me recruiting would mean football in March!” 

Finn ran down the stairs, snatching the thick packet from Carole’s hands. “Thanks, Mom!”

“Hey!” Carole said. “Manners, Finn. Which one is that?” 

“Envelop says OSU,” Finn called over his shoulder and he ran back up the stairs. He grabbed the phone and punched in Puck’s number. “C’mon. Pick up, pick up.”

“Yeah?” Puck said as soon as he answered. “I thought your mom was making you do homework this afternoon.” 

“We got an envelope!”

“Who?” Puck asked. “And is your mom going to freak out if I come over after I check my mail?” 

“Who cares? I’m not opening it until you’re over here, so if you have one, bring it, too! We’ll open them together,” Finn said. 

“Okay. See you in ten,” Puck said, then hung up. 

Puck arrived about eight minutes later. Finn watched him come up the driveway, and ran back down the stairs again to open the door before Puck could knock. “Hey!” Finn said. “You get one?”

Puck nodded and reached behind him, pulling an envelope out of his back waistband. “Yeah. You think this is going to keep happening until next February?” 

“I sure hope so,” Finn said. He held up his envelope. “You ready?”

“Yeah. They should’ve saved on postage and just sent one addressed to both of us!” 

“I know, right?” Finn waited until he saw Puck starting to tear open his envelope before he started to open his own. They each pulled the enclosed materials from inside. Puck’s stack of materials seemed a little thicker. 

“Sometimes I think they’re afraid we’re going to get the mascots mixed up,” Puck said, setting down his stack. “Like there’s five different places this says ‘Buckeyes’ on the first page.” 

“Yeah.” Finn frowned at the cover letter. “They say they like our RB/QB package, but they already have a verbal commitment from a quarterback in our graduating class, so they probably won’t be able to offer me a scholarship. They’d still like me on the team, though. You?”

“Blah blah not a written offer that can be signed but wink wink nudge nudge,” Puck said. “And a note about how verbal commitments are highly encouraging for their recruiting staff when they start typing up the written offers this summer and fall.” Puck made a face. “What’s the difference between them and Indiana or Minnesota, then? They’re not dumb, they know we’re not going anywhere without the money.” 

Finn shrugged and let his packet drop. “I don’t know. Maybe they thought if we both got in some place, but only one of us got offered money, the other one’d try to scrape it together? I mean, they don’t think they can split us up, right? That _would_ be dumb!”

“Duh. But they don’t know we’ve got more reasons than it looks like.” Puck frowned. “We gotta keep acting like we’re maybe willing to split for the Big 10 schools, so maybe Louisville’ll come through. Their OC liked us a lot, remember? Even the other guys visiting thought so.” 

“Yeah, and it’s not super far from home, but it’s far enough, which is good,” Finn said. 

“Yeah, we could drive back and forth when we need to.” Puck looked through the rest of his packet and pulled out a few pages. “What we need to do is get Coach to take these, so she can let it get around OSU’s interested without any other details. Right?” 

“Oh, yeah, that’s smart,” Finn said, nodding his head. 

“Good.” Puck flipped through Finn’s packet and pulled out a few pages from it, too, setting them aside. “Your mom doesn’t know I’m here, right?” 

“I got the door before you knocked, so probably not.”

Puck grinned. “So if we’re quiet…” 

“Yeah,” Finn said, hopping up to lock his door. “If we’re quiet.”


	9. Chapter 9

Finn grabs an extra Browns hoodie on his way out the door, knowing that Puck’ll probably be in shorts on the plane, since it’s at least twenty degrees hotter in Charlotte today. Because he’s so close to the airport, he’s able to park and go inside with enough time to confirm that there is, in fact, a TMZ photographer and a cameraman inside. They look excited when they see Finn, calling out his name and waving their arms around, though to their credit, they don’t try to run up on him or anything.

After confirming that Puck’s flight has landed and that he should be on his way to the front now, Finn stays where he is, occasionally nodding politely at the TMZ guys. Puck is a lot more noticeable than usual, wearing the bluest pieces of Panthers gear he has, including his hat from training camp, and instead of his usual carry-on, he’s got a Panthers duffel bag. He glances towards the TMZ guys for a second, then grins at Finn and waves almost too exaggeratedly. 

“Hey!” Puck says loudly. The photographer and cameraman immediately whip in Puck’s direction. The flash goes off several times.

“Hey!” Finn shouts back. “Smile for the camera, buttface!”

“I don’t want them to make _too_ much money!” Puck says, turning towards the photographer and cameraman as he gets closer to Finn. “Can’t even visit Ohio without making the news?” 

The TMZ guys must realize who Puck is, because the flash stops going off, and the photographer shouts, “Really?” at Finn. 

“Hey, I’m not the one feeding you stories!” Finn says, shrugging dramatically. He puts one arm around Puck once he’s close enough. “Ready to go home?”

“God, yeah,” Puck says. “Any idea who _is_ feeding ’em stories?” 

“Somebody in the locker room. Not Mayle, but that’s really all I know. It’s more or less harmless, since they have no idea who it is I’m really involved with, obviously,” Finn says. 

“Well, yeah, but it’s got to be irritating as fuck,” Puck says. “I’m irritated and it’s not even my locker room. That hat came, by the way. Figured in another two or three weeks I can show up all incognito and they can do a story on your mysterious Browns-fan boyfriend.” 

“Aren’t you my mysterious Browns-fan boyfriend? I mean, you _are_ still a Browns fan, right?” Finn asks. 

“Shhh, don’t tell my employers,” Puck says. He waves once at the TMZ guys as they head out of the airport, then shivers. “Shit, it was burning up on the field today.” 

“Here.” Finn hands Puck the hoodie. “I knew you’d be freezing your ass off once you got out of the airport.”

“And you’d be really sad if my ass fell off for any reason?” Puck asks. He pulls the hoodie on without moving too far away from Finn at any point. 

“Duh.”

Puck looks behind them a final time, then his arm goes around Finn’s waist. “You think they’ll bother to edit that for their show tonight?” 

“Maybe. They can get a little mileage out of calling it a ‘bait and switch’ probably,” Finn says. 

“Bait and didn’t look as gay as they thought it should, you mean. You think we can keep ’em guessing for most of the season?” Puck asks. 

Finn nods. “Yeah, I think so, and then if you want to come out once the season’s over, they’ll still be scratching their heads saying, ‘We never saw it coming!’”

“Three more months, until the end of December… that gives us plenty of time to mess with ’em,” Puck says. “It’ll serve them right for trolling your locker room gossip.” 

“It could be fun. I’m parked just over there.” Finn points towards the far side of the lot. 

“You thought I hadn’t had enough exercise? And I think you should talk about meeting me in drag one week. They’ll be taking so many pictures of every woman taller than 5’9”,” Puck says. 

Finn bursts out laughing. “God, they would, wouldn’t they?” He shakes his head, still laughing. “This is a mess, Puck. I can’t believe this is our life.”

“Hey, it’s the Panthers’ fault,” Puck says. “We had a good plan. I even figured you could have given a press conference during training camp and talked about your sure thing. Now I’m on a first-name basis with all the US Airways flight attendants instead.” 

“I could still give a press conference about my sure thing,” Finn says. 

“Yeah? What about it?” 

Finn pulls Puck closer as they near the car. “Welllllll… I’d probably start with how the Panthers messed up all our plans, and now I only get to see my sure thing two days out of the week, if I’m having a good week.”

“Trying to turn all the gay press against the Panthers?” Puck asks with a grin. “Maybe Outsports’d call for a Panthers boycott.” 

“It’s possible,” Finn says. “This _is_ a good week, though.”

“Yeah, it’s a good week,” Puck agrees. “We don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow, right? No Target run or anything?” 

“Nope. Just you and me and a pair of fuzzy Browns pajamas.”

Puck makes a face. “Why are we wearing pajamas?” 

“It’s getting cold,” Finn says. “You don’t want to wear your fuzzy pajamas?”

“Pajamas are for when I don’t have your body heat nearby, buttface.” 

“For in the morning when we’re drinking our coffee, then.”

Puck laughs as they get in the car. “You mean, while I’m making coffee and waiting for you to wake up?” 

Finn grins in Puck’s direction. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Thoughtful of you.” Puck closes the door and leans across to kiss Finn. “Hey, buttface.” 

“Hey.” Finn kisses Puck for a good long while before starting the car. 

Puck leaves his hand on Finn’s leg after he buckles, and he exhales slowly. “Maybe we only mess with them with me incognito,” he says finally. “Kinda cruel that we had to get all the way to the car first.” 

“Yeah. Not my favorite,” Finn agrees. “Let’s get our butts home.”

Puck grins. “Squishy butt.”

 

Considering that no one in scheduling at the NFL had any reason to help them out or know that they were helping Finn and Puck out, the fact that the Browns’ Thursday night game is four weeks into the regular season and the Panthers’ is another five weeks after that is a boon. They won’t get Monday and Tuesday nights the week Puck’s got a Thursday night game, but the game’s in Charlotte, so Finn can fly down that week, Puck figures. 

The Browns don’t fly out to Baltimore for their Thursday night game until Wednesday morning, so Puck still goes to Cleveland early in the week. He hasn’t mentioned it to Finn, but he’s got a great seat behind the visitor’s sideline at M&T Bank Stadium, and once he lands in Charlotte on Wednesday, he buys a ticket, Charlotte to Baltimore, that should get him to the stadium in time for kickoff. He hasn’t mentioned it to Finn because there’s always the chance practice could run too long on Thursday afternoon, and that could mean missing the flight. There’s enough money to buy a later ticket and catch part of the game, but Puck’s not sure how justifiable that is, so he just crosses his fingers as he gets ready for Thursday. He can change at the practice fields and go straight to the airport if he needs to, and if he doesn’t get his ass into his seat until right at kickoff, that’ll be okay too. 

Thursday’s practice is nearly always the most intense of the week, in Puck’s opinion, but when the running back coach finally releases them, he has an hour to shower, change, travel the fifteen minutes to the airport, and then go through security and catch his flight. It’ll be tight, but doable, and Puck walks quickly through the locker room. 

“In a hurry?” Reaves asks after Puck steps into the shower next to him. 

“Little bit, yeah,” Puck admits. 

“Plans?” Reaves continues. 

“Flight to Baltimore in about fifty-eight minutes,” Puck says with a laugh. “You think I’ll make it?” 

Reaves laughs along with him. “Yeah, I bet you will. Flying back tonight?” 

“First thing in the morning. It seemed like I’d get more sleep that way.” And sleep with Finn for the night, an unexpected bonus, but Puck doesn’t say that outloud. 

“Yeah, that probably makes sense,” Reaves agrees. “Good luck.” 

Puck laughs. “Thanks!” 

He makes it out of the facility in ten minutes, quicker than he thought, and the Uber driver he’d contracted is both waiting and somehow gets Puck to the airport in only twelve minutes, which lets Puck relax as he gets in the security line and makes his way to the gate. There’s not any chance of hiding he’s at the game, so he’s still in a Panthers hat and jacket. TMZ had been disappointed by it being Puck showing up at the airport “instead” of the mysterious boyfriend, but none of the sports networks or departments had picked up on the story, and it’s been at least a month since they got any best friends in the NFL press, so Puck thinks ESPN’ll be excited once they recognize him. It might even make one of the NFL Network’s headlines on Friday, since Friday’s usually a slow NFL news day.

The plane lands and Puck hurries to the taxi stand, but even with everything having gone his way, he has only about five minutes to spare when he drops into his seat: section 100, row two, just behind the visiting team’s sideline. He slides down a little as the game gets started, trying not to call too much attention to himself, but during kickoff, the older guy next to him raises his eyebrows. 

“Are you sure you’re at the right game, son?” 

Puck laughs. “Yeah, I look like I got lost, huh? I’m just here to watch Hudson.” He nods towards the Browns sideline where he can make out the ‘5’ on the back of Finn’s jersey. 

“Oh. Okay. Best friend, right?” the man asks. 

“Yeah. Most of the time, we can’t exactly be in two places at once, but I left after practice and I’ll be back by tomorrow’s practice,” Puck says. 

The man looks like he wants to ask another question or two, but he doesn’t. He nods at Puck’s answer and turns back to the field, and Puck bides his time. Eventually the crowd noise will have a momentary lull, and he’ll be ready to yell at Finn then. It doesn’t happen in the first quarter, though Finn looks into the stands once, and Puck gets scared that Finn might spot him first. He ducks down, tying his shoe, and when he looks back up, Finn’s looking back at the field and unperturbed. 

As the second quarter goes on, Puck starts to wonder when, exactly, he’ll get his lull in the crowd noise, but with about four minutes left, it finally happens, and he takes off his hat and holds it one hand as he cups both hands around his mouth. 

“Get out there, Hudson!” he yells into the relative quiet. 

Finn pauses, turning towards the stands, and after a second he points in Puck’s direction. Puck grins and points back, dropping his hat into his lap for a moment. 

“Lazy buttface!” Puck adds. 

Puck can hear Finn yell something back, but he can’t make out what it is, so he shrugs a little, still grinning, and picks up his hat to put it back on. Finn has to turn back to the game then, and Puck half-watches the game and half-watches Finn, throughout the rest of the first half and all of the second half. Finn plays a few downs, but not near the end zone, and once the game ends, Puck walks the fifteen minutes or so to the hotel where he knows the Browns are staying. 

He sits in the lobby of the Hampton Inn, still in his Panthers hat, and the funny thing is that it’s perfectly acceptable for Finn’s best friend to show up at the game, to wait in the lobby, and even to go back to Finn’s room with him. It just means that Puck really will have to be quiet. 

Puck’s been at the hotel for probably close to an hour when the first of the Browns comes through the door, and Puck puts down the magazine he’s been half-heartedly reading, watching and waiting for Finn to walk in. Finn’s easy to spot, at least, and Puck stands up when he sees him just outside the door. 

Best friend only isn’t really that hard, and Puck calls out “Hey, buttface!” as soon as Finn’s inside. 

“You’re the buttface, buttface!” Finn calls back, bounding across the lobby in about three steps. 

“Surprise!” Puck says, giving Finn a hug that might last a little too long, but no one’s timing them. Finn gives him a hard squeeze before they let go of each other.

“More surprised when you were shouting at me in the second quarter!”

“I didn’t want to say anything in case I couldn’t get here in time,” Puck says, then drops his volume somewhat. “They still putting you up in your own room, all lonesome?” 

Finn nods. “You know me. I’m a danger to others.”

“How dangerous? ’Cause I was hoping you’d want a roommate for the night.”

“Well,” Finn says, dropping his voice, too. “I only bite if you like it.”

Puck grins at Finn. “You know exactly what I like. You do know what this means, though, right?” 

“I’m gonna be tired tomorrow?’

“Well, duh. That and you’d damn well better be in Atlanta Sunday.” 

Finn’s smiles widens. “You know it. Gotta be there to squish your face, buttface.”


	10. Chapter 10

Even though most people had made verbal commitments long before Signing Day, Puck and Finn had kept their mouths shut around everyone else. They had two goals, neither one really more important than the other: play Division I ball so they can get drafted, and stay together doing it. All of Lima including their moms and Coach Beiste thought there was only one goal, though, the first one, which explained why everyone seemed confused about why they hadn’t made a verbal commitment. 

Minnesota had been the first one to really get their name in the conversation, for Puck, and then Indiana had followed for Finn, and because of that and the excitement of heading to state for a second year, everyone except Finn and Puck hadn’t really noticed the offers from Louisville. 

But there they were, one for each of them from a Big East school, and sure, Big East, but they’d been co-conference champions in 2011. Puck knew he and Finn weren’t the splashy recruits who don’t redshirt and get a lot of press time, like the SEC recruits, but Puck also knew from talking to Louisville a lot that it probably was their best chance at a great NFL draft in 2017, too. 

Their moms kept asking them for a hint or a clue, and Puck and Finn kept not saying anything, just like they didn’t say anything to Coach Beiste, and when lunchtime on Signing Day rolled around, Puck knew they were going to surprise some people. 

“Want to go sign our papers and put on hats and shock people?” Puck asked as the bell rang. 

“You know it,” Finn said. “Think my mom’s gonna freak?”

“Probably. I think Coach might have a miniature heart attack or something, too.” Puck steered them away from most of the school and towards the locker room. “At least we know Louisville’ll be happy. We should ask if we can go to the Derby one year and drink those mint julep things.” 

“Yeah, that’d be awesome,” Finn said in agreement. 

“You boys ready?” Coach asked when they passed in front of her office. “Any questions?” 

Puck shook his head. “We know what we’re doing.” Of course, as Puck said it, he realized that could sound ominous to Coach, but she was going to know in a few minutes anyway. 

“I’ll snap a few pictures,” Coach said. She opened the locker room door and pointed to a table with four different sets of paperwork on it. Puck stood in front of it, blocking the view of what he was doing as he shuffled them around until the Louisville paperwork was on top for both of them, and he stepped around to the other side then. 

“Ready, buttface?” Puck asked quietly as they sat down. 

“Yup,” Finn said. “I’m ready.”

Puck grinned and picked up one of the pens on the table, signing the papers and then watching Finn do the same. “Well?” Coach asked. 

“You wanna tell her?” Puck said. “Then I’ll take the fall with our moms.” 

“Do I have to?” Finn asked. 

“Hey, I just volunteered to tell your mom!” Puck whispered. He glanced at Coach out of the corner of his eye, and he could watch her face change from expectant to confused. 

“Uh, so. Coach?” Finn said. “We’re not going to the Big Ten. Sorry.” 

Coach sighed and looked resigned. “Louisville, together?” 

“Yeah,” Finn said. “We weren’t ever really gonna split up.”

“But you can tell Minnesota and Indiana thanks,” Puck offered. “’Cause that gave Louisville something to worry about, probably.” 

“Right. I’ll do that,” Coach said, then sighed again. “Put your hats on, boys, and go eat some lunch. And congratulations.” 

Finn grinned and picked up his hat, putting it on his head, then picked up Puck’s and put it on Puck’s head. “Thanks, Coach,” Finn said. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Puck echoed. “Two state championships helped us a lot, too.” 

“Come back and visit,” Coach said, shaking her head a little as they leave. 

“Okay, so I just have to convince our moms this is a great financial move, right?” Puck said once they got back into the hall. “One car, no need to visit each other?” 

“And we can keep each other on track and stuff, too. Make sure we get all our work done,” Finn said. 

“Yeah, ’cause Ma still likes to talk about how I can’t count on the NFL and how we should make sure we get degrees.” Puck shrugged. “Of course, she also talks about how if I met a girl, she’d be unimpressed if I didn’t have a degree, so she’s not really on top of things.” 

“Well, you might _meet_ a girl, you just wouldn’t go out with her or anything,” Finn pointed out. “And she might still be impressed about you playing football, degree or no degree.”

“Yeah, but do _you_ care if I have a degree?” Puck asked. 

Finn shrugged. “I’d _care_ , ’cause probably we oughta get them, but I wouldn’t like you any less, buttface. Don’t worry.”

“I’m just saying, her whole hypothesis is invalid.” Puck grinned. “See, I sounded really smart then.” 

Finn grinned back at Puck. “Yeah, but I usually think you sound smart.”

Puck nudged his shoulder against Finn’s and then threw his arm over Finn’s shoulders, looking around a little. “Love you too, buttface. We get to live together in, what, four? Five months?” 

“Awesome,” Finn said. “This is all gonna be so awesome.”

 

“I’m going to up on weight again,” Puck said, standing near the bench press. “So you’re going to have to actually spot me instead of just staring at me.” 

“Nothing wrong with staring,” Finn insisted. He loaded the weight onto one side of the bar while Puck loaded the other, then he took the spotting position near Puck’s head after Puck laid down on the bench. 

“Not as long as you still catch it if I need it,” Puck said. He grasped the bar and started pressing, grunting a little. 

“I’d never let you squish yourself with the weights, buttface. Don’t worry,” Finn said. “I just like watching your arms, is all.” 

Puck grunted a few more times through the first set, then set the bar down and tilted his head back to look at Finn. “Careful,” he warned in an exaggerated whisper. “That sounds kind of gay.” 

“Oops,” Finn said. 

Puck snorted. “You can tell me more about your ‘Puck’s Guns Appreciation Society’ when we’re back in the dorm,” he suggested, positioning his arms for a second set. 

“Yeah, but then your arms are gonna be so tired,” Finn said. “You won’t even be able to hold yourself up while I appreciate you.”

Puck shook his head and grunted through the second set. “Who can I get to hold me up, then?” he finally said. 

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s somebody else on the team who could help out. Maybe Mayhew. Mayhew’s always saying how much he wishes he had your arms,” Finn said. 

“Mayhew wouldn’t know what to do with my arms if he had them, on or off me,” Puck said with a snort. “Damn. Okay, one more set.” 

“Yeah, he’d better not,” Finn said. “Your arms are _my_ arms.”

“That sounds weirdly kinky,” Puck said, then started pressing his last set. When he finished, he stayed on the bench for a few moments. “I can’t do this weight again before the spring game next week.” 

“Aww. Are you tired?”

“My guns are, yeah. And we’re both on the Red Team this year, we can’t let that opportunity slip.” 

“Yeah,” Finn said, as he started removing some of the weight from the bar – his arms weren’t anywhere near as impressive as Puck’s. “Think we’ll get a chance to start next season if we do a good job?”

“Bridgewater’ll probably still start most of the games at QB, but they’ll probably put you in some, yeah,” Puck said. “Maybe start against FIU or Temple.” 

“I bet you end up starting more games than me. Just wait and see,” Finn said. 

“You want me to go out and get them excited or something?” Puck asked. “Make ’em all talk about how they can’t wait until we’re both out there?” 

Finn laughed and sat down on the end of the bench, forcing Puck to scoot over. “They oughta get excited about it. We’re pretty damn awesome.”

“Well, duh. I think Coach Johns wants me to teach the other running backs how to take a handoff without looking.” Puck grinned. “I’m pretty sure most of them aren’t really interested in putting that much into their game.” 

“Did you tell him it’d be easier if they had QBs they could trust?” Finn asked. 

“I tried, but I think his mind went to like… trust falls and cooperative games,” Puck said with a snort. “Definitely it went to fully-clothed activities.” 

Finn laughed loudly enough that guys on the other end of the workout room turns to look at him. He shook his head. “Yeah, they probably wouldn’t like our version of trust falls very much.”

“They’re very effective, though. This time next year we’re going to be first on the depth chart for the spring game,” Puck said. “And we can bullshit reasons why we work so well together, when people ask.” 

“I’ll tell ’em it’s just ’cause you’re so patient with me,” Finn said. “Patient and, uh. I don’t know. Something.”

Puck snorted and sat up. “Well-lubricated?” he whispered. 

Finn laughed again. “Shit, you can’t say that in the middle of the workout room!” He smacked the side of Puck’s leg. “It’s unfair.”

“I’m just getting you motivated to finish up,” Puck said and stood up. “Want me to spot you so we can go run sprints and then get out of here?” 

“Yeah, may as well get it over with.” Finn turned to lie down on the bench. “Help me keep count.”

Puck moved to the head of the bench and nodded. “Always.”


	11. Chapter 11

Day to day, going to class or practice or working out, there was never a real reason for Puck to register his size or Finn’s. Finn’s always been taller than Puck, and through the years, it usually felt like nothing much had changed. Whenever Finn lies on top of him, Puck usually is reminded, with the entire length of Finn against him, his shoulders spreading out and his hands giant on whatever part of Puck they’re touching. 

Usually it’s Puck’s face or Puck’s dick or Puck’s butt, and sometimes two out of those three, and it’s the feel of Finn’s hands that’s the hardest to replicate when Puck’s jerking off. Sight is pretty easy. They’ve sent each other enough pictures that Puck can find one that suits his fancy and then close his eyes, keeping it and all of his memories about how Finn looks and moves in the forefront of his head. He can even figure out sound, because he does have a few sound files of Finn talking if he really needs it. Smell’s a little harder, but after the first couple of weeks, he started swiping a T-shirt or something out of Finn’s dirty laundry before heading back to Charlotte, bringing it back the next week and swiping something else. Taste is less important and would be really weird, but touch, the way Finn’s hands feel on Puck’s skin, is important and pretty impossible to get right. 

Puck’s own hands are just too small and too rough in the wrong places, too smooth in others, and no amount of picturing Finn and hearing Finn’s voice can make up for that. Sometimes it’s easier when he’s standing in the shower, because the shower is only for jerking off and very rarely for sex, but there are days when Puck wants to jerk off but doesn’t want to hold himself upright in the shower. 

On those days, he occasionally contemplates getting a taxi to the airport, flying the one hundred minutes home to Cleveland, and getting too-little sleep just so he can have Finn for a few hours. He hasn’t done it, not yet, but part of him wonders if it’s inevitable, now that the idea’s occurred to him. Not a Wednesday night, but a Thursday night or a Friday night, with an early-morning flight back, and sometimes Puck looks up flights on his phone while he eats dinner, just so he’ll know what his options are. 

It’s a little odd, maybe, because Puck knows from five years at Louisville that living in the same space doesn’t mean an orgasm every night, but the impossibility of having time with each other makes it feel more like they’re missing out. It’s that thought that if only he could get home, they’d at least be in the same space and could decide for themselves, that makes Puck fantasize a little. 

It’s a Friday night in the middle of October, though, and Puck doesn’t buy any tickets to Cleveland. He doesn’t buy a ticket to Indianapolis, either, since that’s where the Browns are, waiting for Sunday’s game against the Colts. Instead, he takes a quick shower and puts on the ridiculous brown-and-orange striped fuzzy socks with the Browns helmet on the ankle that Finn gave him to keep his feet warm, and then lies down on the bed. 

When the Browns get their bye week in November, Finn’s going to fly down to Charlotte, but he hasn’t been in Puck’s hotel room yet, which is weird to think about. Puck grabs his tablet and pulls up a picture of Finn for a moment, then closes his eyes and starts slowly stroking himself with one hand, his other arm flung across his eyes and forehead. 

He could put on some recording of Finn, or even call him so they could make yet another abortive attempt at phone sex, but it’s the sounds he misses more than the words, and the hotel room is just too quiet. When the HVAC system kicks in, it's white noise loud enough to help Puck pretend. His hands still feel all wrong, but he can let himself imagine the way Finn sounds in the white noise being generated. 

Puck moves his hand a little faster, thinking about the first time, probably a good seven years earlier, that they’d given each other blow jobs. Puck had put his hand down Finn’s shorts, had wrapped his hand around Finn’s dick while he tugged Finn’s shorts down. In their rush to start fucking, they’d gone almost straight from making out to fucking, with only a brief stop at handjobs, and then after a month or so, they’d gone back to blow jobs. When Puck had gotten Finn’s shorts down, something about them lying there and Finn’s dick and Puck’s dick had been even hotter than usual. Maybe, Puck thinks, they’d gone through yet another growth spurt. Whatever it’d been, instead of fucking, they’d put their mouths on each other’s dicks, and then it was weeks of almost exclusively blow jobs before it all evened out. 

Puck rolls a little, onto his side, picturing Finn beside him, knowing he’d probably be trying to roll them one way or the other, so that Finn was either on top of him or he was on top of Finn. He can’t replicate that, though, so he stays on his side with his eyes closed. He thinks about the way Finn looks now, all muscle and still pale, and what he wants to do on Monday night when he gets home. 

He wants to beat Finn home, which has only happened once all season, but it could happen, and he wants to have dinner ready for them, probably takeout so they don’t have to clean up. Puck wants to wrestle on the bed for awhile, both of them wanting to be on top of the other. Maybe, Puck decides as he moves his hand, he can manage to get Finn effectively pinned to the bed and let Finn slide inside him while he sits there. Then Finn’d probably stop trying to roll them over, at least. 

Finn would probably grab Puck’s hips, helping Puck move up and down, and that thought finally means Puck’s own hand on his dick feels right, because if Finn’s hands are on Puck’s hips, Puck has to wrap his own hand around his dick. Puck lets himself moan a little, knowing from past experience that no one complains about any noises he might make. There’s only one suite beside his, since he’s at the end of the hall, and unless the hotel is full, most of the time the suite beside him and the suite across from him are both empty. 

Puck’s strokes are faster and sloppier, his eyes still squeezed closed, and he flops onto his back again. He can almost make himself feel Finn there, almost can make himself believe that it’s Monday night and he’s sitting on top of Finn and staring at him. He squeezes his dick, moaning again, and he can feel himself getting closer and closer to coming. 

He pictures Finn again, imagines Finn’s hands on his hips and Finn telling him to make noise, and that’s all it takes. Puck lets out a moan that might be closer to a shout and comes, mostly avoiding his hand but getting it all over his chest. He lies there for a few minutes, breathing heavily, then grins to himself. He reaches for his phone and takes a picture of himself, holding his arm out as far as he can, and then studies it. 

Not bad, he decides, and it’s pretty clear what he was just doing. He opens up his messages with Finn and starts to send it, then pauses, going back to his camera. He takes a couple more shots, then gets up and cleans himself off and turns out most of the lights so he can climb into bed. Once he’s in bed, he does send the picture, without any additional commentary, and holds the phone in his hand, waiting for Finn to either respond or call. 

_Damn_ , Finn texts, and Puck’s phone almost immediately starts ringing after that.

“Hey,” Puck says as he answers. “You like that one?” 

“Yeah. That’s so hot,” Finn says. “Hey.”

“I was thinking about Monday.” 

“Yeah? What about it?” 

“Just that one of these weeks, I’m going to manage to beat you home on a Monday,” Puck says. “And make sure we eat takeout, too, so we have even more time in bed than usual. One of these Fridays I’m going to end up getting bored and flying in, you know.” 

Finn laughs softly. “Yeah, that would be the worst. Poor me, getting to see you more.”

“Desperate times, desperate measures, right?” Puck says. “You in bed yet?” 

“Yeah. I hurried, as soon as I got the picture.”

“You know I’m probably going to fall asleep in a minute or two,” Puck says, going ahead and flipping out the last light as he says it. “Wearing nothing but fuzzy Browns socks.” 

Finn whines a little. “Leaving me hanging, huh?”

“I can make it up to you on Monday?” Puck offers. “And Tuesday morning.” 

“Yeah, but that’s then, this is now,” Finn says, then he sighs. “At least I’ve got something nice to look at after you fall asleep.”

“Yeah, it was a better picture than I expected. Love you, buttface.” Puck closes his eyes, knowing he’s about to fall asleep, and the last thing he hears is Finn’s answer. 

At least it’s a decent night’s sleep.

After two consecutive games where Puck gets put in on third down and short yardage and makes sure they move the chains, the focus of Puck’s practices during the week starts to change. Puck knows his strengths and he’s not surprised that they’re looking at third-down back for him, but he also knows it means potentially more playing time, which isn’t a horrible thing. Maybe if he performs good for a couple of years with the Panthers, they can stage some kind of off-season show where he and Finn do even better together, and one team or the other will want to trade. 

None of that’s going through his mind by the time he trots onto the field against the Bears at the end of October, though, just that they’re already down seven and it’s not even eight minutes into the game, which means he has to come through on the first down conversion. Cam’s passes aren’t off, but they have two injured wide receivers, which is part of why Puck’s been on the field as much as he has. Cam hands off the ball to Puck and while it’s not at the level of clean handoff with no need to look that Puck and Finn have perfected, it’s good enough for Puck to tuck the ball, run, and dive, and he knows as he hits the grass that they got the first down. He doesn’t go back on the field during that series, but three plays later, the score’s evened up at 7–7. 

By the second quarter, Puck’s on the field again, this time on a second down and short, and despite Puck’s best efforts, the handoff’s sloppy enough that he almost loses the ball as they bring him down right on the line. Puck figures they won’t go to him again, even though he’s still on the field for third and short, but Cam does, and this time, Puck gets over the line and keeps going until he can run off without being tackled, for a seven-yard gain. Someone must have been impressed with either that run or the lack of fumble on the play before, because at the end of the series, when it’s second and goal on the four, Puck gets sent back out. 

He blanks out a little, focusing on the called play and what he knows about the defenders he’s facing, and even though he doesn’t trust Cam the way he does Finn, and never could, he lets himself reach for the ball without a visual double-check, grasping it and pulling it in tight before he pushes past the defensive line and into the endzone. 

Just like that, he’s scored his first touchdown in the NFL, and he goes through the hugs and slaps and celebrating almost mechanically. He _has_ a celebration for getting a touchdown, or he did, but he doesn’t now, and he feels a little bit lost as he heads back to the sidelines while they kick the point after. 

Finn isn’t there to celebrate with, Finn isn’t there to hang off of, and Finn doesn’t even know the touchdown happened. Finn’s playing the Chargers two states away, and for all Puck knows, Finn could be on the sidelines—most likely—or out on the field or scoring his own touchdown. He can’t check in with Finn during halftime, and even if he could sneak his phone out and manage to get a message off, there’s definitely no way that he’d get lucky enough that both their halftimes would coincide and Finn would be able to receive the message. 

So Puck does everything he’s supposed to during halftime and goes back to the field for the second half, and he gets put in two more times, both in the fourth quarter. The first time, he doesn’t get the first down. The handoff is great and there’s a clear path through the Bears’ linebackers right up until the moment that there isn’t, and Puck lands on his back, ball still against his chest. He didn’t fumble at all during their last two years at Louisville, and he’d like to keep that streak going. As the whistle blows, though, Puck knows he didn’t get the ball over the line of scrimmage, which means they’ll be bringing out the punters. 

The Panthers get the ball back five downs later, though, and five downs after that, Puck’s in again on another third down. This time, the clear path holds and Puck gets the first down plus some extra yardage, moving them on down the field. It’s his last time on the field for the game, but at the end of that drive, Cam runs in the winning touchdown himself, and Puck knows he’s contributed to the team’s victory that day in more than one way. 

Still, it feels like it’s not real, not any of it, until he gets to tell Finn. He’s had a really good game for a rookie, but he’s still just a running back and it’s still just a regular-season game and he’s still not the one who’s out, so he doesn’t have to deal with the press. He goes back to the locker room with the rest of the team, hurrying through his shower as much as he can. They’ll go straight from the stadium to the airport to head back to Charlotte, so the quicker he’s outside, the longer he has to talk to Finn. 

A quick look at his phone as he heads out the tunnels tells him that the Browns game is over, but not what time it ended, and that the Browns lost, just like they did to the Colts the week before and the Bengals the week before that. At least, Puck thinks absently, they should be able to beat the Ravens in a week, and at least Puck can be at that game. The Panthers’ week is short, with another game on Thursday, which means Finn’s the one flying on Monday night, but it means seeing Finn more in the long run. 

Puck finds a quiet corner where he can see who’s around and then calls Finn, hoping Finn’s at least headed home, or maybe already at home, and he starts talking over Finn as soon as he hears Finn’s voice. 

“I scored.” 

“For real?” Finn says. “That’s awesome!”

“For real. Second quarter. I didn’t know what to do with myself afterwards,” Puck says. 

“Wow, buttface, that’s great! I’m proud of you!”

“You should’ve been here. Maybe we can find a clip of it or something tomorrow night, and we can redo the aftermath,” Puck says. A few more members of the team come out, but no one approaches him. 

“Yeah,” Finn says, sounding a little sad. 

“Are you home already? Anything exciting at your game?” Puck asks. “Did TMZ show up and scan the crowds looking for me?” 

“Nothing too exciting for me, anyway. I thought I saw that same TMZ guy at the beginning of the game, but I guess he left when he didn’t see my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, probably.” Puck walks a little farther away from the knot of Panthers players. “What’s wrong, buttface?” 

“Nothing,” Finn says.

“Finn. How many years have I known you, again?” Puck shakes his head. “Tell me what’s going on,” he says. 

“I just wish I’d been there to hand you the ball, is all,” Finn says. “It’s not a big deal. I just wish I was there.”

“Yeah. I know,” Puck says quietly. “Me too. One day when we write our biography, we’re going to rake the Panthers over the coals.” 

“Yeah. They kinda mucked it all up. But, hey! You scored, buttface! You gonna go out and celebrate?” 

“Maybe I’ll go get a steak when we get back to Charlotte,” Puck says. “Or I might order room service and we can go get a steak after you get there tomorrow. Does it feel weird that you have to be the one to fly this week?” 

“A little, but mostly I’m just happy to get to see you, wherever that happens,” Finn says. 

“Poor TMZ, they’re going to be at the wrong airport this week,” Puck says. “You should tell Mayle something fake really loudly. Maybe that you’re flying to Virginia or something.” 

“Yeah. TMZ’s gonna start sending me their bills if we keep fucking with ’em like this, you know.”

“Don’t care,” Puck admits. “It brings me joy to imagine their faces.” 

Finn laughs. “Yeah. I guess I can’t really feel sorry for them.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night, buttface,” Puck says as the bus pulls up. “I gotta go catch an airplane.” 

“Don’t eat too many peanuts on the flight, buttface. Love you.”

Puck laughs. “No such thing as too many peanuts. Love you too.” 

 

Finn turns the television on and starts flipping through channels, bypassing the Thursday night game, since he and Puck never watch those unless one of them is playing. He pauses on TMZ just in time to see his own face staring back at him, dressed head to toe in Browns gear, which means it’s one of the times he was at the airport messing with them. 

“And now we have more details about the mystery man in Finn Hudson’s life,” the voiceover says. “An exclusive source in his neighborhood can confirm that he often sees Hudson with another man purchasing groceries.” The screen flashes to one of the pictures of Finn and Puck kissing, Puck’s hat pulled down low and his face always angled away from the cameras. “One thing we now know is that they share a love of a high-protein diet.” 

Finn starts laughing immediately, grabbing his phone to call Puck. “Turn on TMZ,” he says as soon as Puck answers. 

“Hang on.” There’s a clattering noise and then Puck’s voice is back. “Oh hey, there we are! Are they talking about _chicken_?” 

“We share a love of protein, Puck,” Finn says. “This is fucking amazing.”

“If by protein, you mean dick, then yeah, that’s true,” Puck says. 

“Our source confirms that Hudson can often be seen with the smaller man around the Tremont neighborhood, which includes Lincoln Park,” the TMZ reporter says. For a moment, they show the fancy Russian Orthodox church that’s on the other side of Lincoln Park, like that’s going to tell the rest of America about the neighborhood. “Always, he says, in Browns gear.” 

“Smaller?” Puck says. “Everyone’s smaller than you.” 

“You _are_ smaller than me,” Finn says. “I mean, that’s not a lie.”

“Yeah, but that makes it sound like you’re dating a midget!” 

“Christie, do we know anything else about Hudson’s—well, can we assume it’s a boyfriend? Anything else about him?” the TV asks. 

“It seems like they’re at least exclusive, since we don’t have any reports of Hudson with anyone else,” Christie says. 

“Hey!” Puck says. 

“What?” Finn says. “We are exclusive!”

“Don’t even know if I’m your boyfriend,” Puck grumbles. “I should send them an anonymous email. Do we know anyone who can do that computer thing where it looks like it was sent from somewhere else? I could make an email account that says ‘hudsonsvirginialover’ and make it look like I was in Richmond.” 

“I think that’s more trouble than it’s worth just to fuck with TMZ,” Finn says.

“Yeah, okay, fair enough,” Puck concedes. “Do you think we should mess with them, and you could tweet that you’re spending your bye week in Colorado? They keep forgetting you have a known quantity of a best friend, too.” 

“Yeah, it’s not like you’ve ever said you were _straight_. Stupid assumers.”

“I _could_ create a new Instagram account and mess with people that way,” Puck says with a laugh. “Take up-close pictures of your hands, maybe.” 

“Ooh, that’s a good one!” Finn says. “Maybe a picture of our hands together.”

“Usually people have rings on in pictures like that,” Puck says. 

Finn laughs. “Is that your way of saying I need to buy you a ring? ’Cause I’ll buy you a ring.” He abruptly stops laugh when he realizes what he just said. “Shit. Did I just kinda-sorta propose over the phone?”

“Yeah, I think you kinda-sorta did,” Puck says. 

“Pretend I didn’t!” Finn blurts. “Just— just forget I said it, okay?”

“Uhh. Is it a _bad_ thing?” Puck asks. 

“No! I was just gonna do it _right_ , is all, and now I went and ruined it, buttface!”

Puck laughs softly. “So I’m supposed to be surprised?” 

“Yeah. Duh! Proposals are supposed to be romantic and surprising, not over the stupid phone!” Finn says. “Besides, you can’t wear a ring all the time yet, right? So I was gonna wait until New Year’s Day!”

“Okay. I’ll wake up in 2018 with no prior knowledge,” Puck says. “Deal?” 

“Deal. Now let’s see if they talk about us more after the commercial break,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “If they don’t, we’ll set up something really great for them next Monday.”


	12. Chapter 12

Mayhew flung open the locker room door and stood on the nearest chair. “First depth chart of the season’s posted!” he announced. Mayhew did not volunteer any further information about what the depth chart might have said and just climbed off the chair. 

“You think?” Puck said to Finn.

“It’s definitely possible,” Finn said. 

“You want me to go check and come back and tell you, or are we both going?” Puck asked. 

“You do it. No, we’ll both do it. No, you should do it.” Finn forced himself to smile at Puck. “I’m being a dork, right?”

“You’re always a dork to me,” Puck said with a grin. “I’ll be right back.” He walked towards the locker room door, only wearing a pair of shorts, then went out for at least thirty seconds before walking back in, face still looking the same. He jumped on Finn’s back and hung there. “Guess what?” 

“What? No, don’t tell me. No, okay, tell me now,” Finn said, crossing his fingers. 

“Numero uno,” Puck said in a bad Italian accent. “Both of us. Whatever that is. _Entrambi_.” 

“ _Seriamente_?” Finn asked. 

“Certo!” Puck said. 

“Italian again?” Crum complained. 

Finn flipped Crum off. “Vaffanculo!”

Puck laughed. “I don’t know how to say his dick’s too small,” he whispered to Finn. “But, _yeah_ , certo, decisamente!”

“That is _so_ awesome,” Finn said. “Go us!”

“I told you not to worry,” Puck said, dropping down off Finn’s shoulders and picking up his T-shirt. “Watch, we’re going to have a great season.” 

Finn nodded. “Yeah. I just sorta wish…”

“What?” Puck asked. 

“You know.” He dropped his voice. “Wish it could be different. You and me not a secret.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why we’ve gotta have a great season, though,” Puck pointed out. “You’ve heard the rumors about Michael Sam, same as I have.” 

Finn nodded. “Yeah. We’ll have a great year, and then it can be different.”

“And maybe the rumors are wrong. Maybe he’ll be on the roster,” Puck added. 

“Maybe.”

“Anyway, we’re at the top of _our_ roster, and we’ll go out with the rest of first-string for dinner, and then celebrate later, right?” Puck said. 

“Right,” Finn said. “It’s gonna be a good season.”

“That’s right, buttface,” Puck said. “We good?” 

“Yeah. We’re good.”

 

Standing on the sideline on a Thursday night in October, Puck felt a little bit like he should consider moonlighting as a cheerleader. 

“I told you it was going to be a great season,” Puck said to Finn as they watched FSU’s offense take the field. “We’re up 24–7 against FSU!” 

“Gotta keep it going,” Finn said. 

“We’re doing our part,” Puck pointed out. Almost all of the Cardinals’ offensive players held their breath when Winston dropped back to attempt a long pass, so Puck didn’t feel it was too big of a risk to grab Finn’s hand. The ball went at least sixty yards, and Puck felt his stomach sinking as he watched the ball arch down. Then the crowd at the other end of the field cheered, and Puck realized what he was actually seeing. 

“Holy shit Parnell got it!” Puck yelled. 

“Oh shit!” Finn shouted, squeezing Puck’s hand. “Oh my shit, he got it!”

“Run! Keep going!” Puck yelled, jumping and screaming with the rest of the team. Parnell wasn’t as fast as the running backs, but he was the fastest of their cornerbacks, and he pulled ahead of FSU’s offensive-players-turned-defenders. 

“Holy shit! Holy _shit_ , Puck! Parnell’s doing his part, too!”

“It’s going to be thirty to seven! Against FSU!” Puck said, dropping Finn’s hand and jumping on his back. “We gonna make it thirty-seven?” 

“Yeah, we are!” Finn said as he bounced them in a circle and whooped. 

“And people said we couldn’t hack it in the ACC!” Puck said. They cheered again as the point after went through the uprights, and Puck dropped back down to the ground. “Think Coach’ll let us eat up the clock this early?” 

“I hope so! I’m ready to celebrate!”

“Hey, if there’s something we’re almost as good at as scoring, it’s eating up the clock,” Puck said as he put his helmet back on. 

They did both during the rest of the game, eating up time and scoring two more times. When the clock ran down to zero, the score was 40–21, and Puck knew there’d be a lot of press. As they got ready to go answer a few questions—the leading scorers on the team that finally stopped FSU—Puck had the brief thought that it was a perfect opportunity for one or both of them to come out. He shook his head, though, because they hadn’t told anyone else on the team, and their coaches would have felt ambushed. Not the best idea. 

The press questions, which they took alongside Parnell, were pretty fun, and afterwards, they got to walk back to the dorm through a still-celebrating campus. 

“Think anyone recognizes us right now?” Puck asked. 

Finn shook his head. “Nobody would think we’d be on our way back to the dorm when all those parties are happening out there.”

“Good.” Puck stopped and pulled Finn just off the sidewalk, then kissed him hard. Finn put his hands on the back of Puck’s head and held him there. Puck heard people passing them and at least one whistle, but he kept kissing Finn through it. “We’re the best.” 

“Mmhmm,” Finn said, pressing his mouth to Puck’s again. 

“In like, every way,” Puck added. He kissed Finn’s neck and ran his hands down to Finn’s butt. “We’d better get back. You know why?” 

“Why?”

“’Cause otherwise we’re going to have two headlines tomorrow. One for football, one for me blowing you right here.” 

“Back to the dorm!” Finn said, pointing in the dorm’s general direction. “Blowjobs, stat!”

Puck laughed. “I’m going to get them to put that in your ‘personal’ section on the website next year,” he said. “It’s going to say ‘loves blowjobs’.” 

“And it’ll be one-hundred-percent true!”


	13. Chapter 13

Puck always checks the score for the Browns as soon as he can, but he doesn’t usually get a chance to check details right away, which is why it’s Norwell that gives him the news. 

“Manziel took a bad sack and Hudson played the rest of the game,” Norwell says. “They’re still doing press over on the far screen.” 

“Thanks,” Puck says, hurrying over to the far screen where Finn is taking some questions. Puck stands stock-still during the entire thing, even though almost every single question is one that Finn’s answered at least two or three times in the past. Puck figures he must’ve missed the game-specific questions at the beginning. 

When the camera leaves Finn, Puck realizes he’s one of the last people in the locker room, but they’re in Charlotte, so it’s not a big deal. He throws on some street clothes and grabs his gear, ready to walk back to the hotel and make a phone call. The biggest question in Puck’s mind is how bad Manny’s hurt, but the very close second is how in the hell is he supposed to wait over twenty-four hours to see Finn now? 

Twenty-four hours later, he still doesn’t have his answer, to either question. The closest thing to a generic hat that Puck has is a Dodgers hat, bought specifically for the purpose of getting to the hotel and on the plane without anyone taking note of what team he was supporting or what his hairstyle was. He has it on as he boards the plane, tapping his hand and his leg impatiently as everyone boards. The plane is emptier than usual, and since no one else is in his row yet, Puck swaps out the Dodgers hat for his Browns hat and pulls on his Browns hoodie. 

Someone else drops into the aisle seat a few moments later, and he glances a few times at Puck during the flight. Puck wonders if the guy ever watches TMZ or something, but he’s too embarrassed to admit it. He considers whispering that sure, the guy should go ahead and have his phone out so he can make a couple hundred bucks, but in the end he doesn’t. Still, the guy gives him yet another look as they disembark, and Puck texts Finn as he walks. 

_In all my Browns finest which is extra appropriate this week_

_You know it buttface_

Puck laughs as he types. _Which side are they on this week?_

_Left_

Puck nods to himself and scans the main terminal, spotting the TMZ people just before he sees Finn, and he changes the angle he’s walking at as he heads for Finn. TMZ’ll get a nice shot of Puck’s back and head, at least, which is thoughtful of Puck, in his view. It’s a pretty typical angle by now, and TMZ knows his hat, so the flash is going off for at least ten seconds before Puck reaches Finn. 

“I’m so exciting,” Puck says, stretching up to kiss Finn. 

“Well, I know _I_ think you’re exciting,” Finn says. When they’re done kissing, Finn puts his arm around Puck, his body between TMZ and Puck, and they walk out of the airport together. Finn gives TMZ a little wave over his shoulder. “See ya, Pete!”

“Maybe we should get Pete a little Christmas present,” Puck says. “Maybe that fleece Browns hat that you never wear.” 

“Yeah. That would be nice. Pete’s a good sport,” Finn says. 

“So are we picking up a chicken? What with our mutual love of protein and all of that,” Puck says. 

“Nope,” Finn says proudly. “I made a lasagna and it’s in the oven.”

“You made a lasagna and then left it unattended?” Puck shrugs. “Okay. Cool. I can take a picture of _that_ for my new Instagram account.” 

Finn laughs. “Hashtag blessed.”

Puck tries to respond, but ends up laughing most of the way to the car. “Okay, all seriousness,” he finally says. “What’s the word on Manny?” 

“Torn rotator cuff. Gonna be a long rehab,” Finn says. 

“Ouch.” Puck makes a face. “So it’s you, huh?” 

“Apparently so.”

“You know, if the Panthers weren’t making us do Sunday morning workouts, I could almost be there,” Puck says. “At least I can watch.” 

“It’s still weird to be out there without you,” Finn says. “Crowell just doesn’t have your hands.”

“Tell me about it. I have pretty much zero ability to predict what Cam’s about to do. I mean, we’re managing, but we’d be killing it on the same team.” 

“Fucking Panthers,” Finn grumbles. 

Puck nods. There’s not much else to do about it, and at least he does get to go home and eat lasagna, whatever he tags it as. 

Sunday morning is a relatively light workout, and after Puck showers off, he heads back to the hotel to change. Even though Finn played more than one quarter against the Cowboys the week before, the game had more or less been decided before he ever took the field, and Puck doesn’t know who he needs to thank for the fact that Finn’s first-ever NFL start is happening the week that the Panthers are on Monday Night Football. He’s going to thank them, though, because it means Puck’s in front of a big screen television at Kennedy’s Premium Bar and Grill. 

It’s a ten minute drive, and while Puck waits for the Uber driver, he tries to decide if he’s doing the right thing. He could watch the game on the television in his room and be the proud boyfriend, or he can go watch in the bar and be the proud best friend. What he’d really like is to be there in person, or to be able to brag to other people as the boyfriend, but at least by going, he can be around other people. 

He can’t wear the Browns hat with the pompom, since that’s what Finn’s mysterious boyfriend wears, but he doesn’t want to get attention right away with a Panthers hat, so he settles on no hat and a Browns T-shirt. There are enough people with mohawks that he probably won’t be spotted right away, at least. 

All of the screens are already on the Steelers v Browns game, and Puck requests a spot with a good view of one of them, wherever that might be. He ends up at the bar next to a couple of women intently discussing the right way for the Browns defense to handle the Steelers’ offense, and a few guys on his other side who may or may not get drunk and rowdy as the game goes on. 

Puck orders the hummus plate and a beer on tap so he has something to hide his grin behind when the Browns run out onto the field, and again when the Steelers win the toss and elect to defer, which means Finn and the rest of the offense are up first. “Attaboy, squishybutt,” Puck whispers to himself as Finn takes the first snap. 

Every time Puck sees Finn play without him, he has to admit it almost hurts. He should be out there next to Finn, commiserating or celebrating after every single play. Finn knows Puck’s watching this game, at least, but it’s still not nearly the same. Puck watches Finn’s passes more closely than anything else. They’re good, connecting with the receiver and not pushing too far, playing to Finn’s strengths, and Puck figures that’s a smart game plan. 

It’s even harder to watch the running plays. Puck watches one of their backs nearly fuck up a handoff, and he knows Finn’s body language – it wasn’t on Finn that there was almost a fumble. The worst part of the entire game, Puck decides only thirteen minutes into play, is when Finn hands it off to a different back, who runs it in for a perfect touchdown, and for a few seconds, Puck’s so damn mad at the Panthers that he almost breaks his glass. 

Then he remembers where he is, and Puck joins in the rest of the bar in cheering for the touchdown. The camera flashes on Finn’s face for a few moments, showing him grinning, and Puck grins in response. He’ll be the one waiting for Finn to call this Sunday, but he’s already trying to remember as much as he can. 

The Steelers are on the field most of the second quarter in a massive drive that takes up a lot of time on the clock, and even after all of that, they only get a field goal. When the Browns get the ball back, Puck asks for another beer and starts drinking it without taking his eyes off the screen. This time, Finn throws the ball even more, which means Puck feels a lot more like celebrating when Finn’s slot screen to Mayle adds another touchdown to the scoreboard. He even jumps out of his seat, and maybe it’s that enthusiasm that attracts some attention from a few others in the bar. When it goes to halftime, Puck orders some fish tacos, and a few seconds later, a guy taps him on the shoulder. 

“Hey, are you Puckerman? The Panthers rookie?” 

“Yeah, that’s me,” Puck acknowledges, nodding as he turns and offers his hand. 

“Here to watch Hudson start for the first time?” the guy asks, and because he’s in a room full of Browns fans, Puck’s response is a little more candid than it’d otherwise be. 

“Wishing I was on that field with him, to be honest. Doesn’t quite feel right.” Puck can’t reveal, of course, that he very nearly was a Brown, just one slot away, even though there’s been a few articles of speculation about that. 

“Yeah, I bet not! It’s great you can watch, though. Craig Werley,” the guy—Craig—adds. “Tell him there’s more than a few of us in Charlotte pulling for the Browns.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Puck says, nodding. The truth is that there’s probably no few Browns fans who aren’t pulling for Finn directly, solely because he’s gay, but Craig apparently doesn’t care. “Will do.” 

The funny part is that Puck can tell a few people overheard the conversation, and he can hear a few murmurs, but people still surprise him sometimes. The guys that he thought might get rowdy and drunk get friendlier just before the second half starts, and the two women keep acting like he’s not even there. Maybe they really hate the Panthers. 

It’s a good seven minutes into the second half before the Browns get their offense back on the field, and a little part of Puck had thought maybe it’d be easier the second half, watching Finn start and knowing he’s not out there on the field, but it’s really not. Once Puck confirms his Uber car back to the hotel at 4:45—in case the game runs long—he orders another beer, because when it gets down to it, being a little buzzed makes the watching a little less painful.

 

The first play of the second half of the game against the Steelers, or the first play for Finn, anyway, is a slant route, followed by a post, and those two plays together get them over twenty yards closer to the end zone. Finn is too caught up in the adrenaline rush and hyper-focus of the game to think too much about Puck not being there. 

When they’re within striking distance, the call is for a counter trey, which Finn’s run at least a hundred times, almost all of them with Puck. The misdirection of the play, with the initial feint to the opposite side, is something Puck especially likes. The counter trey is one of the plays that Puck mentions from time to time, asking if anyone on the Browns roster can do it as well as they used to. 

The answer is no, but it still works, and they move the chains again, heading down the field. Finn doesn’t throw any interceptions during the drive, and all of his handoffs are good, but on a trap run, Wick loses the ball when the Steelers tackle him. The Steelers recover the fumble, and that’s the end of that drive. 

The remaining drives are mostly bootleg plays and some slant routes, along with a couple of corner routes, but it all works, getting them to the end zone another time, along with a field goal, and the defense holds the Steelers from catching them. The final score is 24–17, and Finn’s first official start is his first official win. The enormity of doing it without Puck there hits before Finn makes it back to the locker room.

O’Connell, the QB coach, catches Finn before he hits the showers. “You’ve got press in ten, Hudson.”

“Okay,” Finn says. He hurries through his shower and tosses on a team shirt and hat, then lets O’Connell steer him to the press room and into a seat in front of a big Browns backdrop. The flashes start going off immediately, making Finn blink more than he feels he should. 

“What’s your initial impression of starting a game in the NFL?” one reporter calls out. 

“It’s exciting,” Finn says. “Didn’t have time to overthink it, which is good.”

“Best play on the field today?” another reporter asks.

“The pass to Mayle in the second,” Finn answers. 

“Any thoughts specific to the history you’ve made here today?” an ESPN reporter asks. 

Finn wants to shrug it off like he shrugs off most questions like that, but he has a feeling he won’t be able to get away with that tonight. Instead, he nod a little. “Yeah, of course. I mean, I’m honored to get to represent the LGBT community in a positive way, and hopefully there are some kids out there tonight who watched me play and felt like they didn’t have to choose between being out and playing football anymore.”

The reporter from the NFL Network asks a series of questions about specific plays, then concludes with “So overall, what was your _favorite_ play on the field today?” 

“Can I say all of them?” Finn asks. The reporters laugh. “Seriously, though, I couldn’t pick just one. Tonight was humbling. It was an experience.”

At the very end, as they’re starting to stand up and leave the press room, Pete and another TMZ cameraperson step forward. “Are you going to celebrate with your boyfriend tonight?” Pete calls out. 

“Oh my God, Pete,” Finn says, shaking his head. “I’m gonna have to stop talking to you in the airport, man. This is getting ridiculous.”

Pete grins like he was expecting exactly that answer. “We’ll put that down as a no, then. See you tomorrow?” 

“Yeah, yeah. You’re gonna owe me a cup of coffee after tomorrow.”

“Have a good night, Hudson,” Pete says, still grinning. 

When Finn gathers up his stuff, he checks his phone and finds the text from Puck he expected: _Back at hotel when you’re free buttface_. Finn puts the phone to his ear as he walks down to his car. 

“So your favorite play is all of them?” Puck says with a laugh. “I like that.” 

“My favorite plays are the ones I ran with you,” Finn says. 

“You did good, buttface. And you didn’t roll your eyes at any of the reporters, either.” 

“I even answered the ‘making history’ question!”

“Yeah, you answered it in true pro-athlete fashion,” Puck says. “I’m proud of you. Or is that I’m somehow both honored and humbled at the same time?” 

“See? I’ve learned all the lingo!” Finn says. “I’m good at giving soundbites now.”

“I know! Maybe you should work in ‘privilege’ or ‘ordinary’ next time,” Puck says. 

“Oh, yeah, those are good. I’ll work them in.”

“I double-checked with will-call, ticket for tomorrow’s waiting. Pete’s going to be upset when he finds out you’ve been cheating on him with other airports,” Puck says. 

“Pete’s gonna be thrilled that he gets to unravel a mystery,” Finn says. “He seems like the Scooby-Doo type.”

“Rut-roh, Shaggy. You about to drive?” Puck asks. 

“Yeah. Call you again when I’m at the apartment?”

“Yeah. Love you, buttface. Drive safe.” 

Finn continues to start, and after two weeks, it feels almost normal, apart from how weird it still is to hand the ball off to somebody who isn’t Puck. He and Puck don’t talk about it a lot, but they both bring it up enough that Finn knows Puck feels the same, like that’s the one part of pro ball they aren’t ever going to adjust to. He likes watching Puck play, sure. He’d like it more if he were watching it from on the same field. 

After the Browns beat Washington in mid-December, there’s enough time on that Sunday to watch most of the Panthers playing in San Diego against the Chargers. The weird thing is that the Panthers are already going to the playoffs, but there’s a chance of the Chargers getting a wildcard spot, and if the Panthers beat the Chargers, it means a higher chance of the Browns getting that spot, and then Finn and Puck would both be headed to the playoffs, something neither of them had planned on happening. 

The score’s already 7–0 in favor of the Panthers, and the Chargers only get about two-thirds of the way down the field before trying for a field goal that misses. When the Panthers get into a second and two situation five plays into the drive, Puck heads out onto the field, along with a couple of receivers that the Panthers use for short-yardage situations sometimes. The ball gets tossed to one of them for a gain of just a yard, which means Puck stays on the field. 

This time, Puck takes the handoff, and there’s a small twitch of his head that tells Finn that Puck was double-checking the handoff, visually placing his hands before focusing on the rest of the field. It pays off, though, with an almost immediate first down, and Puck’s still on his feet, evading the defenders. Finn holds his breath in a way he never did when was actually on the field with Puck. Puck finally runs off the field after a gain of over twenty-five yards, tossing the ball to the ref and sitting on the side with a water bottle. 

The camera lingers on Puck for a few seconds, mentioning that he’s had two touchdowns and a few longer carries in his rookie season, and that the Panthers have quickly worked him into their play rotation. Finn has a brief moment to feel nothing but proud of Puck, then the camera’s back on the field, focusing on the rest of the drive, which ends up resulting in a field goal. 

Puck gets sent out on the field for five more short-yardage plays during the rest of the game, and he carries the ball in two of them. The first time, he gets the first down, and the second time, it’s second and goal when he runs onto the field. It’s late in the fourth quarter, and the game is tied, but the Chargers likely won’t have time to score again, and the commentator remarks that a loss to the Panthers will put the Chargers out of the running for the two AFC wildcard spots. 

Puck gets the ball with a quick handoff and then dives over the defenders to roll to a stop in the endzone. That’s the game, more or less, and that’s one less team competing with the Browns for a wildcard spot. Now it’s down to the Jets, the Browns, and the Colts.

Finn sends Puck a quick text to let him know he’s just waiting for Puck’s call. About thirty minutes goes by before Finn’s phone starts to ring. 

“Hey! That was a great game!” Finn says as soon as he answers. “You looked good out there.”

“What looked best, my butt or my guns?” Puck asks. 

“Your guns. You were moving too fast for me to get a good enough look at your butt.”

“I can stop and pose for you tomorrow so you can check out my butt,” Puck says. “Sorry about the playoff situation there.” 

“Yeah, you’re throwing off the timeline, buttface!” Finn says. 

“Hey, if I have to suffer through some of the post-season, you can too. It’s not my fault the other teams in the NFC South suck so badly,” Puck points out. “Tampa Bay might actually match their other record season.” 

“Is that the story you’re going with? It’s not that you’re good, it’s just that they suck harder?”

“You were in Atlanta the first time we beat them this season. I mean, no one’s _really_ good this season, but they definitely aren’t in this division. Everybody here knows it, just no one’s naming it out loud,” Puck says. “Anyway, we’ll probably end up playing Seattle or San Francisco the week after wildcard, and that’ll be it, but at least you might get the joy of a wildcard slot.” 

“This is all really weird,” Finn says. “I thought for sure we’d be done by January first.”

“Yeah, me too. It’d be nice to come home for a few months. Hell, maybe if I come out, one team or the other’ll change their OTA schedule for us, even,” Puck says. 

“That would be awesome. You should start a list of stuff we’re going to do after you come out.”

“Like a coming-out bucket list?” Puck asks. 

“Yeah. We could be _co_ –grand marshals in a parade,” Finn says.

“Gay Days at Disney,” Puck says. 

“I’m gonna get one of those ‘If found, please return to Puck’ shirts for me, and an ‘I’m Puck’ shirt for you.”

“Only if we wear them to one of those Mickey Mouse meals, and get mouse ears,” Puck says. “That’s what you’re supposed to do at Disney, right?” 

“Yeah. We’ll wear them the whole time,” Finn says. 

“And then, you know. The thing I’m not going to remember as soon as 2018 starts,” Puck says. “There’s that, too.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “That, too.”

“Also I’ve always wanted to see those really big trees in California. Can we go see those?”

“Sure. Maybe we can go to San Francisco on the same trip. That’s a really gay place to go, right?”

“Yeah. We could go to more than one Pride or something, even. You know what I want to do first, though?” 

“What?” Finn asks. 

“We can take a day or two to stock up on food and some stuff at Target, and then I want to take a week where we don’t go anywhere. Not even to workout. We can do an exercise DVD if we start to feel lazy or something,” Puck says. 

“Oh, yeah, that sounds really good,” Finn says. “We can spend at least one whole day not leaving the bed.”

“I won’t even have to wear my fuzzy socks,” Puck says, sounding almost jubilant. “Just blankets and you.” 

“Sounds perfect.”


	14. Chapter 14

Puck and Finn were supposed to be in class, but instead they were in their dorm, the TV turned to MSNBC. “It’ll be today,” Puck said. “Right?” 

“Yeah, I think so,” Finn said. “They wouldn’t make it wait till Monday.”

“That’d just be mean, with all the Prides this weekend, anyway,” Puck said. He turned up the volume and settled back against Finn’s side. 

“What if it’s bad news? I think if they make us wait, it means it’s bad news,” Finn said. 

“Yeah, probably. But it won’t be,” Puck said. He chewed on his bottom lip a little as they waited the remaining minutes for the first decision to be announced, and then held his breath when they said it was Obergfell. “Come on,” Puck whispered. 

Finn tightened his arm around Puck, grabbing one of Puck’s hands in his. “Here we go.”

Puck didn’t really understand most of the legal speak, but he understood the bit suddenly highlighted on the screen: _Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State._

“That’s it,” Puck said. “Right?” 

“That’s it. Holy shit, Puck!” Finn said. 

“Everybody. All the states,” Puck said. He squeezed Finn’s hand as MSNBC started getting quotes from the opinion. “I like that one,” he added, pointing to the screen again. _The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times._

“Yeah,” Finn said. His voice sounded a little strained. “Wow. That’s— _wow_!”

“Makes me kind of wish we could go to one of the Prides this weekend,” Puck admitted. “You know?” 

“Yeah. I know.” Finn sniffled quietly. 

Puck didn’t say anything for a few minutes. From what he could hear, no one else in the dorm was celebrating loudly, and he knew probably there wasn’t going to be a big party in the locker room that afternoon, either. “What do you want to do?” 

Finn didn’t answer right away. Before he did speak he took a deep breath and held it for a second. “I want to come out.”

Puck nodded. He’d pretty much always known it was harder on Finn, keeping things quiet. “Okay,” Puck said. “We’ll need to make a plan.” 

“Okay. Both of us?” Finn asked, sounding hopeful. “Or just me?”

“I don’t know,” Puck admitted. “The whole reason we need a plan is if we’re trying to convince a team to draft both of us, too.” 

Finn nodded. “Okay. Maybe just me for now. We’ll figure it out, though.”

“You know what we should probably do that doesn’t require planning, right?” Puck asked. 

“Celebration sex?”

Puck laughed. “That never requires planning. No, uh. Our moms?” 

“Oh. Shit, yeah,” Finn said. “Guess we’d need to have a conversation with them, huh?”

“Maybe we should just call them. Before we get worked up about it,” Puck said. 

“Yeah. Want to start with my mom?”

“Yeah. Put her on speaker,” Puck said. 

Finn tapped his mom’s number and then switched the phone to speaker. 

“Finn?” Carole said when she answered. “Is everything okay? I thought you had class right now!” 

“That’s uh. That’s actually why we’re calling, Mom,” Finn said. “We skipped class to watch the Supreme Court stuff.”

“The Supreme Court? Oh, right, the gay marriage case? Was that for a class?” Carole asked. 

“Man, we’re good,” Puck whispered. “How’d we do that?” 

Finn shrugged. “Yeah, the marriage case, but it wasn’t for a class. Mom, I’m… Geez, this is harder than I thought.”

“Want me to?” Puck offered quietly. Finn shook his head.

“No. I can do it,” he said. 

“Finn? Are you still there? I think I can hear some talking, but I can’t make it out,” Carole said. 

“Yeah, Mom. I’m still here,” Finn said. “I was just calling to tell you… I’m gay, okay? I’m gay, and I’m gonna come out, I think, and I wanted you to know. I’m gay.”

Carole didn’t say anything for close to a minute. “Well, sweetie, I can’t say I knew, but I’m not as surprised as I could be, either. Though you’ve always spent your time with—” 

“Hey, Mrs. H,” Puck said. “Yeah. Me too.” 

“Yeah, Puck, too. And we’re together. Like, together-together,” Finn said. 

“That does clear a few things up,” Carole said. “I— thank you for telling me. Is that the right thing to say? And you said you were going to come out?” 

“Yeah, Mom. Like, I’ll be out, you know, as a football player, so that’s kinda big, I guess,” Finn said. “Puck isn’t sure yet about him, though, so please don’t tell anybody, okay?”

“Right. Of course,” Carole said. “Try to keep me in the loop? Oh, and enjoy the weekend, I guess!” 

“Thanks Mom. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Finn,” Carole said. 

Finn ended the call and looked at Puck. “That wasn’t so bad.”

Puck shook his head. “How’d she not have any idea, though?” 

“I don’t know,” Finn said with a shrug. “She said it cleared stuff up.”

“I guess maybe it’s bad parenting to ask or something?” Puck guessed. “We can call my mom tonight. And I’ll start digging into, I guess, strategies?” 

“You think there’s a website, maybe? Coming Out Strategies for College Athletes or something?” Finn asked. 

“I was just going to email that guy that runs the website with all the stories about Michael Sam and the diver guy,” Puck admitted. “Figured if I didn’t use my Louisville email it’d be okay, right?” 

“Right,” Finn said. “Okay. So we’ll develop a strategy and we’ll go from there.” He smiled at Puck and leaned in to kiss him. “I love you, buttface.”

Puck grinned and grabbed the front of Finn’s T-shirt. “I love you, too. _Now_ we have celebration sex.” 

 

Puck had a running email correspondence with Cyd, the guy from Outsports, and together, they helped Finn develop his coming out plan. Cyd helpfully volunteered to talk to some of his NFL contacts, who indicated their teams would probably be willing to draft a gay quarterback with good enough stats, as long as he wasn’t, in Cyd’s words, ‘a total party boy’. They also used Cyd’s contacts to find an agent willing to take them on come draft time. 

After the roster was announced, Finn went to the coaches first. That discussion went better than Finn expected, and everyone was surprisingly supportive. They decided Finn should wait until they were a few weeks into the season before telling the team. After the third game of the season, a win against Clemson, Finn told the team. 

“So? You’re still a good quarterback,” Mayhew said. “We don’t have to _do_ anything because of it, right?” 

“Right,” Finn said. “I just wanted you guys to know before other people did.”

Puck nodded, his arms crossed, and he glared at most of the room like a bouncer. “What about Puck?” Towbridge asked. 

“It’s not contagious, you idiot!” Staples said, and most of the team laughed at Towbridge’s expression. 

“Puck’s been my best friend since we were in peewee,” Finn said, which is what Puck called a non-answer answer. 

“You need us all to show up and stand like him whenever you come out?” Lacy asked. “’Cause no offense, Puck, but the O-line’s more impressive than a ’back.” 

“I love you guys,” Finn said, shaking his head. “But not in a gay way. No offense, but none of you are really my type.”

Everyone laughed, and Puck stuck his tongue out at Finn. Finn grinned back at him, because it was true. None of them _were_ Finn’s type, since none of them were Puck except for Puck. As far as the team was concerned, though, that was that. Other than a few good-natured jokes, nobody really seemed to have anything to say about Finn being gay.

Two weeks later, at the start of their bye week, Puck looked up from his computer on Monday evening. “Cyd’s going to fly in to Louisville Saturday so he’ll be here on Sunday,” Puck said. 

“Oh yeah?” Finn asked. “What for?”

“Uh, so he can field some of the questions and take some of it off you, since he’s done this before?” Puck said. 

“Oh. Yeah, okay. I don’t think there’s gonna be _that_ many questions, though. It’s not like I’m the first,” Finn said. 

“You’re not the very first, no, but you’re the first football player in one of the power five conferences to come out while he’s still got games left to play in college,” Puck said. “And there won’t be that many questions ’cause the media’s going to be instructed to keep it short and sweet, and if they get too nosy, someone’ll cut them off and get you out of there.” 

“I guess I didn’t think about _me_ being the one getting questions,” Finn admitted. “I figured they’d want to ask the coaches or the team some questions, but all I did was be gay and also really good at football.”

Puck laughed. “Yeah, but the combination of those two is what they think is fascinating. I told Coach McGee that you should set up just outside the locker room, and I can hang out in there. Probably have to turn Lacy down on the glowering O-line offer, though.” 

“It was really nice of him to offer, though.”

“Well, yeah. Just goes to show, though, the team doesn’t care, it’s the people outside the team,” Puck said as he shrugged. “Do we need to go over any of the questions they might ask you?” 

“I don’t _have_ to answer any of them, right?” Finn asked. 

“Nah, but it’d be better if you answered most of them, probably,” Puck explained. “Then you can make them feel guilty for asking something too invasive.” 

Finn nodded. “Okay. Yeah, we should do some practice questions, I think.”

“So I figure they’re going to ask you both when you realized you were gay and also why you decided to come out,” Puck said. “You think you can do both of those?” 

“Oh. Yeah, probably,” Finn said. “The second one’s easy. I was excited about the Supreme Court, but we didn’t have anybody else to get excited with. If I was out, we could’ve partied with the whole team, I bet!”

Puck laughed. “Take everyone to Cincy Pride?” 

“Yeah!”

“And the other one?” Puck said. “The when-did-you-realize?” 

“Yeah. Uh, I can’t really tell them that one,” Finn said, “since it’s about you.”

“Hmm.” Puck grinned at him. “Anything you can make up?” 

“I could just say I realized I liked somebody,” Finn said. 

“Yeah, that’d work. They’d probably follow up with something like ‘And did that work out?’ but you could either laugh it off or just say ‘Yeah. Next question’,” Puck said. 

“Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. What _is_ the next question?”

“How do you expect this to affect the rest of your time at Louisville, and do you think it will impact your future with the NFL?” 

“Uh, not, for number one, and I don’t know. Maybe? For the second one,” Finn said. “I’m just happy to be here playing ball for Louisville right now.”

“Ooh, yeah, that’s good,” Puck said. “Remember that one. Oh, and they’ll probably ask you some version of ‘what does this mean for the gays’ but you should use ‘LGBT’ in your response.” 

“What should I say about that one? Oh! How about something about visibility and, uh, more opportunities? That’s good, right? Those are buzzwords!”

Puck laughed. “Yeah, exactly. I think you’ll be good, and then you can escape to the locker room” 

“Or I could escape before the presser and you can answer all the questions for me,” Finn said. 

Puck shook his head. “No, but I can congratulate you afterwards.” 

“Naked congratulate?”

“Naked congratulate,” Puck said while he nodded. 

“Could we go ahead and naked congratulate in advance,” Finn asked. “Like right now, maybe?”

“You know I don’t need an excuse to get naked,” Puck said, pulling off his shirt. 

“And I don’t really need a reason to be congratulated.”

The presser turned out to have more reporters than Finn expected, but they were mostly polite, and many of them seemed to already know Cyd. Though Finn was sure this wasn’t the last presser he’ll ever have to do, it went well, and he didn’t stumble over his answers. 

“That’s going to be all of the questions,” Cyd said after about twenty minutes. “Thank you all for coming.” The reporters turned to Cyd instead, and Cyd gestured for Finn to go into the locker room. 

Finn looked for Puck as soon as he got back into the locker room. “You in here still?”

“Did you survive the questions?” Puck asked, coming around the corner. “Anything way too personal?” 

“One of them asked if they could meet my boyfriend,” Finn said. 

“So they just assumed, hey, good-looking guy, starting quarterback, he must have a boyfriend already?” Puck asked. 

“But they’re right.”

“I guess that does cut down on people trying to set you up with someone, at least,” Puck conceded. “Ready to get out of here?” 

“I was ready to get out of here by the first question,” Finn said. 

Puck laughed. “Yeah, but hey. It’s done. Right?” 

“I don’t know. I kinda get the feeling it’ll never really be done. They’ll be asking me these questions before the draft and after the draft and probably every season, unless there’s other guys who come out, too,” Finn said. 

Puck snorted. “So no pressure, huh?”


	15. Chapter 15

Puck should have known. 

After Puck had learned they all had Christmas Day off, their day off shifted from Tuesday to Monday for that week, Puck had assumed for a couple of weeks that New Year’s Day would be the same, but it isn’t. It’s bad enough that the season isn’t over—okay, it’s really good that their seasons aren’t over, but it’s also bad—but then on the Wednesday after Christmas, the next week’s schedule finally gets posted. 

Even though the Panthers have a week off, because they’re Division Champions and not in the wildcard round, they’re working a regular week’s schedule, with one extra day—Saturday, sort of—off. Puck stares at the schedule for a few minutes, then pulls out his phone and books a ticket from Charlotte to New York. The way everything is going, he’ll be there to watch Finn and the Browns beat the Jets and go on to the next round. 

When New Year’s Day rolls around, practice gets started a little bit late, and then lunch is a traditional southern New Year’s Day meal, or something like that. That takes longer than usual, too, and nothing about the day seems to be designed to let them get back on schedule. 

By the time practice is finally over, Puck’s pretty sure he’s either about to miss his flight or already has. He picks up his bag and fishes his phone out, wincing at the time displayed on it. Ten minutes until his flight, and even if he could get in a car right away, he wouldn’t make it through check-in and security in time. 

It shouldn’t be a big deal. There are two more non-stop flights. He can afford to buy a last-minute ticket, and he’ll still be home on Monday. He’ll still get to sleep in their bed. 

Except it’s already January, and the Panthers are going to be in the playoffs, and thanks to the wildcard slot, the Browns are too. The next non-stop flight doesn’t leave until after 8 pm, because there’s over two hours between flights after the one Puck usually takes. He’s going to have to call Finn and let him know, and he’s just so damn disappointed and tired that he breaks his own usual rule of not calling Finn while anyone else can overhear. 

He keeps his phone out and he calls Finn and sure, some of the guys look surprised at the look on Puck’s face and the fact that he’s actually using his phone in front of them. It rings twice and Puck starts talking as soon as Finn says “Hey.” 

“I’m going to fucking miss my flight,” Puck says. “There’s another non-stop at eight, but there’s no way I’m making it to the airport in the next nine minutes, since we’re still walking in from the practice field.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Puck can see Reaves shaking his head at someone, and Norwell looks confused, but it’s still not like Puck’s naming names or where he’s headed. 

“Shit,” Finn says. “Can you get a later one?”

“There should be at least one more, unless the schedule’s different because it’s a holiday.” 

“I thought stuff would be winding down by now. It’s just getting crazier instead!”

Puck sighs. “Yeah, I know. Seriously. And we don’t even have a game this weekend. I bet you’re already home.” 

“Yep. I’ve got on the fuzzy socks and everything,” Finn says. 

“Now see, that’s just mean, buttface.” 

“There’s another pair right here just for you.”

“And that’s somehow _not_ mean?” Puck asks. 

“So soft,” Finn says. “So fuzzy. One for each foot.”

“You’re going to pay for this,” Puck threatens. 

Finn laughs. “Yeah, but I’m gonna pay for it in my fuzzy, fuzzy socks, squishyface.”

“I’m going to poke your squishy butt for that.” Puck shakes his head. 

“Oh yeah? Poke it with what?”

“Our mutual love of protein.” 

“Better find yourself another flight then,” Finn says. “Me and my squishy butt and my fuzzy socks are waiting for you.”

“Working on it as soon as I shower. Which I’m going to do now,” Puck says. 

“Good. Get cleaned up and then come home.”

“Love you, buttface.” 

“Yeah, love you, too, buttface.”

Puck doesn’t look around him, just leaves his phone in his locker and goes to the showers. He can take a little longer, since he’s not hurrying to the airport. He closes his eyes and scrubs at his face as he angles it up at the showerhead. It’s not a big deal, he keeps telling himself. He’ll spend the nearly five hundred dollars and get on the 8:05 flight. 

“Everything okay?” Reaves asks when Puck turns off the shower and starts to towel off. 

“Sure,” Puck says, shrugging a little. “Just irritating. Unexpected.” He pauses. “Different flight than usual.” 

It’s already the end of the season, and while they don’t have a specific plan in place yet, Puck knows he doesn’t go through more than a few weeks after they finish the season without coming out. Puck figures that means he should probably make sure the rest of the Panthers know first, and Reaves is a pretty good guy and a good place to start. 

“Every Tuesday,” Reaves says with a nod, then he looks like he’s about to start joking around. “Can’t stand to say in Charlotte?” 

“Charlotte’s alright, but it’s not home. Two nights a week at home is good,” Puck says calmly. 

“Cleveland?” Reaves asks quietly, but he’s smiling. 

“Yeah. Cleveland.”

Reaves nods a few times. “That’s good, yeah. Good.” He thumps Puck’s shoulder once and then heads to his locker, and Puck nods before walking back to his own. 

The locker room empties out faster than Puck’s ever realized it did on Mondays, usually because he’s the first one out the door, and he reaches for his phone with his towel still around his waist. He pulls up the flights to Cleveland again and tries to select the 8:05 flight, but now it’s sold out, and Puck curses under his breath as he selects the 10:15 flight instead. The purchase goes through and Puck forwards the information to Finn, then starts to pull on some sweats. He’s got time to go by the hotel, now. He can eat dinner there and then call for an Uber driver. 

“You find another flight?” Norwell asks suddenly from behind Puck, a sweatshirt halfway over Puck’s head. 

“Yeah,” Puck says. “Ten-fifteen.” 

“Late night, then.” 

“Yeah, and dinner here,” Puck agrees. Norwell’s never been particularly upfront about whether or not he’s joking around or genuinely curious, but either way, he’s not likely to be traded, not any more than Puck is, before the 2018 season. “It’d just be nice to have more than a dinner or two a week.” 

“How many years of dinner?” Norwell asks, and Puck has to grin a little. It’s the perfect way to ask, because neither of them are outright saying anything. 

“Eight years,” Puck says, and he watches the surprise register on Norwell’s face before he lets out a low whistle. 

“Damn,” Norwell finally says. “Well, tell him hi.” 

Puck laughs. “I always do.” 

Puck heads out of the practice facility, and he stops in at Draught for a burger instead of trying to figure out what frozen Trader Joe’s meal he can stomach on a night he wasn’t intending to eat at the hotel. He swaps out all of his Panthers gear for regular clothes and packs one of his smaller carry-ons, then calls for an Uber driver. He’s at the airport an hour too early, but maybe he’ll get lucky and be able to change his seat or something. Because he’d bought the ticket so late, he’d been stuck with seat 24B, in the middle of a row and on the wing. 

While he hangs around the airport, he buys _Beverly Hills Wildfire_ for Finn. The back of it says it’s about a group of people who refuse to leave because they fear looting, but then some various gangs come in and end up saving the residents from the fire as it approaches. One of the reviews says that it’s both exciting and teaches a valuable lesson about bias, which Puck figures Finn doesn’t need, but the real-life exciting disaster sounds exactly like something Finn’d enjoy. 

Puck doesn’t get lucky enough to change his seat, because it’s not that kind of day for him, and the plane takes off fifteen minutes late. Then when they get to Cleveland, it circles a few times, so it’s at least twenty minutes past midnight when the plane lands. Puck tugs on his pompommed Browns hat and grabs his carry-on as early as he can, heading towards the main part of the terminal. 

If Pete and the other guy from TMZ were still there at midnight and awake, Puck would end up giving them something to see, despite the hat, but the terminals are mostly deserted. The plane ended up on Concourse C instead of the usual Concourse A, and that means he’s coming up on Finn from behind. Puck briefly considers texting him, but decides it’s not worth the effort, and speeds up a little. He swings the strap of his bag over his shoulder and then jumps as he gets within a few feet, grabbing onto Finn’s shoulders and swinging a little. 

“Hi buttface,” Puck says into Finn’s ear. Puck closes his eyes for just a few seconds, letting himself dangle from Finn, and it feels so damn good, especially after the evening he’s had. “You better turn around and kiss me now.”

Finn does turn, pulling Puck into a flashier-than-normal-for-public kiss. Puck drops his hands to Finn’s butt, squeezing it as they keep kissing. It’s probably irritating to the other people in the airport, but Puck doesn’t particularly care. 

“Happy New Year,” Puck says, half-smiling. 

“I’m sorry we didn’t get to do the New Year thing you didn’t know about,” Finn says. “I figured we probably should wait until we’re knocked out of the playoffs.”

“Yeah, probably so,” Puck agrees. “I can’t believe I couldn’t even make it home while it was still January first, though.” 

“Maybe you have bad karmic debt,” Finn says. 

“What?” Puck makes a face. “Where’d you hear about karmic debt?” 

“Mayle. He’s into eastern philosophy.”

“Huh.” Puck shrugs and starts heading out of the airport. He waits until they’re in the car and the heat’s on before he says anything else. “I think I started the coming-out process.” 

“Oh yeah? To who?” Finn asks, sounding excited. 

“Well, I kinda called you in front of the entire offense, for starters. And then Reaves and Norwell asked.” Puck laughs for a few seconds. “Norwell asked how long, and I think the answer surprised him.” 

“Oops?” Finn says. 

“Hey, two fewer people to tell, right?” Puck says. “God, I’m tired. My fuzzy socks still waiting?” 

“Yup. I picked out a pretty pair for you.”

“Nothing says restarting the new year like pretty fuzzy socks, I guess,” Puck says. He closes his eyes and puts his hand on Finn’s leg as Finn drives them home, then opens his eyes and stretches once they get home. The apartment’s warm, and Puck drops his bag near the door, getting undressed as he walks towards the bedroom, where there is in fact a pair of new fuzzy socks sitting on the bed. “Aww, you finally found me some rainbow ones!” 

“I was hoping you could wear them wherever soon,” Finn says. 

“I can take ’em with us when we go to California. Disney, too,” Puck says, sitting down and putting them on. “See, this is how ridiculous I look when I call you most of the time. Socks and nothing else.” 

“Yeah, ridiculous,” Finn says. 

“Hey. Come here.” Puck grabs Finn’s hand and pulls him onto the bed next to him. “I know. It sucks.” 

“Tonight was supposed to be different from this,” Finn says as he sits down next to Puck. 

“Yeah. I know,” Puck says, leaning against Finn. “Hell, all of 2018 was supposed to be different. Two guys from the third-round by teams that weren’t expected to go to the playoffs this year, we were supposed to be done today. Yesterday. Whichever.” 

“And I don’t want to wait for the thing you aren’t supposed to know about. I don’t.” Finn puts one arm around Puck. “But when it happens, I also want to be able to tell _everybody_.”

“Yeah. That’ll be good.” Puck turns his head to the side and kisses Finn’s neck. “We should give Pete an exclusive. To go with his hat.” 

“Aww. Yeah. Good ol’ Pete.”

“I’ll almost miss him, but we won’t be exciting anymore. Just boring old us,” Puck says. “I mean, we’re really already boring, because right now I want to fall asleep with us taking up about half of the bed, but Pete and the rest of them don’t know that.” 

“I like being boring with you,” Finn says. He scoots across the bed, hauling Puck with him, and manages to pull the covers back and get them underneath with minimal shifting and rearranging. Once they’re lying down, Finn pulls Puck against his chest and kisses his neck a few times. 

“What do you think we have to do to convince Carolina to trade me, you think?” Puck asks. “I don’t think just showing up at your wildcard game Sunday all in brown will be enough.” 

“Hmm. I don’t know. We can try sad eyes.”

“Okay. Brown clothes, sad eyes, and maybe our agent.” 

“We could get, I don’t know. One of those groups. Lambda Legal or HRC. They could write a long letter about how wrong it is to separate us,” Finn says. “They could have a petition, even!”

“Change dot org, maybe. I love you.” 

“I love you, too. They have to trade you. They _have_ to.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees. “It’s too hard otherwise. Not fair.” 

Puck cuts it closer than usual on Wednesday morning, getting back for practice, but he hasn’t been late to a single practice all year, and they don’t even have a game that week, so he doesn’t feel badly about it. The Panthers make them do a two hour morning workout on Sunday, and then Puck heads to the airport to fly to New York. 

He doesn’t actually wear any Browns gear, and he feels somewhat guilty about it, but if he’s being completely honest, he doesn’t really want the Browns to win. He knows Finn’ll play his best, just like Puck will the next week, but their lives would be easier if the Browns and the Panthers would just go ahead and lose. 

The problem with that, Puck realizes by the end of the first quarter, is there’s no good reason why the Jets should have made the wildcard game in the first place. Petty can’t manage to get any long throws off, and by halftime, the Browns are up 17–0. The second half doesn’t go any better for the Jets, and Puck realizes during the two-minute warning that Finn’s going to be playing in Cincinnati against the Bengals at the same time that Puck’s going to be playing the 49ers the next week. 

“Well,” Puck says out loud to no one, though probably some of the people around him hear it. “There goes that plan.” 

 

Finn turns on ESPN in the morning on Monday while he’s eating his breakfast, and almost chokes on his protein scramble when the sportscaster says that the Brown’s Hudson looked awfully unhappy for somebody who was advancing in the playoffs. While Finn had certainly given it his all, like he always did, he hadn’t been looking forward to any additional games, and he still isn’t. 

“At the risk of sounding like we’re touching too much on gossip, could it be a personal issue? Perhaps a little trouble in paradise?” one of the anchors says to the other. 

“It doesn’t seem like it should be related to the game, does it?” the other anchor says. “After all, the Browns won cleanly, and Hudson certainly has the backup spot locked down, even after Manziel finishes rehab for his shoulder.” 

“That’s true. Maybe Hudson just had other things on his mind.” 

They start talking about something else, and about thirty seconds later a text comes through from Puck. 

_u watching espn? grumpy face_

_Yeah I had other things on my mind duh_

_I’m gonna try to be even grumpier this week and see if I get mentioned too y/y?_

Finn laughs and sends another text. _They’ll probably say ur mad about the weather_

 _I AM mad about the weather. It’s 36 and raining all week here. Charlotte doesn’t know what snow fucking is_

_At least u don’t have to play in the snow. Playing in snow sux_

_Could grab ur butt and blame it on slipping in snow. See u tonight grumpybutt_

_Love you grumpyface_

_Love you too_

The Browns fly from Cleveland to Cincy late on Thursday, which Finn thinks is kind of ridiculous, since they don’t even reach cruising altitude before descending again, the flight is so short. Since Puck has to stay in Charlotte for his own divisional playoff, Finn’s stuck in a hotel room alone watching all the pregame coverage. 

“And turning to Sunday’s games, Blake, let’s first take a look at the AFC. The Browns are travelling across the state to face their division rival, the Bengals, and I think it’s worth remembering that not only did the Bengals win their division this year, they defeated the Browns both times the two teams met.” 

“That’s right, Reg. Both of those games were while Manziel was leading the team, too. Now we’re looking at the prospect of a rookie taking the Browns past Dalton and his seasoned Bengals?” Blake shakes his head in faux-seriousness. “I think we have to consider that Hudson just doesn’t have the leadership experience for this campaign. There’s a gravitas that you want to see from your offensive leader going into the preseason that I don’t know that we see in Hudson.” 

“Excellent point.” Reg looks pleased, like Blake just gave him the perfect opening. “There’s also the impact of publicity. Of course every player in the post-season has to deal with some of that, but wouldn’t you agree that Hudson’s facing far more scrutiny than most?” 

“Not many quarterbacks playing this weekend are on a first-name basis with a TMZ employee, no,” Blake says with a chuckle. 

“Yeah, because Pete only likes _interesting_ people,” Finn says to the television. 

“Exactly. Let me go back to your earlier point, Blake. How are Hudson’s locker room leadership skills? Do we have any reports from inside the Browns locker room?” 

Finn snorts. “Locker room leadership. Just ask if he thinks the other guys are worried I’m gonna look at their dicks. I’m not looking at their dicks, Reg! Nobody wants to look at their dicks!”

“Well, Reg, nothing official that’s anything less than supportive, of course. I’m sure there’s a few members of the team, especially on defense, who wish Hudson was on TMZ less and more often featured in the week’s highlights.” 

“Nobody’s complaining about my performance but you, Blake,” Finn says. “You know what you are, Blake? You’re a complainer. A complainer in an ugly sport coat.”

“Now, on the offensive side of the ball, we do have—” Finn’s phone rings over Reg’s next comment. Finn smiles, because it’s Puck, and answers the call. 

“Are you watching this shit?” Puck asks. 

“Why are straight guys so worried I’m gonna look at their dicks?” Finn replies. “Like their dicks are so damn special!”

Puck laughs. “Well, I was just gonna tell you that I praise your performance.” 

“Thank you,” Finn says. 

“Off the field, too, though.” 

“Well, yeah, both of us have excellent off-field performance.”

“You think they’ll come up with some bullshit thing about my hands for next year that really means ‘his hands are as queer as the rest of him’?” Puck asks. “Do they really think they’re fooling anyone?” 

“I think they think they’re sooooo clever,” Finn says. “But they’re just assholes.”

“‘Assholes’ might be too nice of a name for them,” Puck points out. 

“Really, only by Sunday afternoon will we know how all these factors are affecting the Browns’ performance,” Blake says. 

“‘Really, only by Sunday afternoon will we know if our homophobic asses were wrong about football, because we’d never admit we were wrong about anything else’,” Puck mimics. 

“‘Also, my sport coat is very ugly and my skin looks kind of orange’,” Finn adds in the same fake-Blake voice Puck used. 

Puck laughs. “Maybe ESPN needs to resurrect that show my ma used to watch. Remember, with the bunch of guys giving makeovers to other guys?” 

“Yeah. He needs makeup that makes him less orange. Maybe he needs to lay off the spray tanner.”

“We need to start angling with Pete for our post-retirement plan in, what, ten? fifteen? years,” Puck says. “We can star on TMZ Sports.” 

Finn laughs at that. “Yeah, we’d be good at that. Then we can be the ones stalking people in the airport.”

Reg and Blake turn out to be completely wrong about the game, as Finn leads the Browns to a win against the Bengals with what Finn thinks is plenty of gravitas. They head back into the locker room celebrating, and Finn immediately asks if anyone has the Panthers score yet. 

“They’ve still got a few minutes on the clock,” Campbell says. 

“Yeah, but what’s the _score_ ,” Finn asks. 

“Oh, Panthers are up, twenty-four to twenty-one, but the Niners have the ball,” Campbell says. “Not a done deal yet.” 

“Shit. Let me know when it’s over. No, let me know if somebody scores,” Finn says. 

“We can probably change one of the screens to it,” Campbell offers. 

“Yeah. No. Yeah, okay, that’s probably good.”

Campbell nods and goes over to the closest one, flipping through the channels until the Charlotte game is on. The Forty-Niners do have the ball, but they’re not even in field goal range and having trouble making first downs. While Finn watches, they punt, and once the Panthers take the field, they run the clock down along with drawing closer to field goal range themselves. When time runs out, the final score is twenty-seven to twenty-one. 

“Awesome,” Finn says, containing his desire to jump in the air and yell for Puck’s sake. 

“So both of you are going on?” Mayle asks. “That sounds like some kind of movie-of-the-week.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “We thought we’d both be done by now. Now I think I’m kinda rooting for him to win the Super Bowl.”

Mayle laughs. “But not you?” 

Finn shrugs. “Since this isn’t actually a movie-of-the-week, it’s not like it’ll be _both_ of us, right?”

“Guess that depends on us and the Texans next week. I mean, Panthers versus Cardinals? Hard to say.” Mayle shakes his head. “Press’d like it if it was both of you.” 

“The press would like it if I bombed miserably and they could make an example out of me,” Finn counters. 

“Some of the press, maybe, yeah,” Mayle concedes, frowning a little. “Not all of ’em, though. I don’t think so, anyway.” 

“Either way, they’re watching me, so no pressure, right?”

Mayle nods. “Fair enough, yeah.”

When Finn checks his phone on the way back to the hotel, he has a text from Puck. _One more week._


	16. Chapter 16

Puck wasn’t exactly surprised when he got the email from Cyd, that one of the feature writers at Sports Illustrated was interested in interviewing them for one of the August issues. Puck nodded as he read through the email, then looked up. 

“So what do we think about letting someone interview us for a story that’ll be at least half lies?” Puck asked Finn. 

“I don’t know,” Finn said, furrowing his brow. “Is that, like, ethical?”

“Well, it won’t be lies about you, just me. Cyd says a writer at Sports Illustrated wants to do a feature story on us playing together the whole time we’ve played and all of that,” Puck explained. 

“Do we _have_ to lie? What if you used that to come out, too? That would be kinda cool, wouldn’t it?” Finn asked. 

“Yeah, except we don’t know how they’d spin it,” Puck said with a frown. “What if the writer got mad and ended up writing about how teams that might’ve considered drafting both of us shouldn’t? Because we’d fight in the locker room or— what’s the phrase? Bring our domestic squabbles to work?” 

“But we don’t do that,” Finn said. “We never fight!”

“You started fighting with me last week about how the dorm room’s too cluttered and we were providing kindling!” Puck said. 

“Wildfires are a real danger, Puck! Don’t trivialize them!”

Puck sighed. “See, you’re doing it again. They might write that we argued about disaster prep. And find a way to suggest that disaster-preparation fights undermine locker room cohesion.” 

“I’m not doing anything!” Finn insisted. “I just think it would be cool if you could come out, too, is all I’m saying!”

“Yeah, I know. Me too. I just don’t want to end up in like… Kansas City or something, while you’re in, I don’t know. Miami. Massachusetts.” 

“And I don’t want to end up thirty and still can’t tell people about my boyfriend!”

“There’s a big difference between waiting until _less than a year_ from now, after we get drafted to the same place, and waiting until we’re thirty, and you know it,” Puck said, frowning at Finn. 

“I’m just frustrated,” Finn said. 

“But don’t act like it’s my fault most teams are full of idiots in the front offices,” Puck said. “ _Anyway_ , what do you think about the Sports Illustrated thing? Cyd says he can vet at least some of the questions ahead of time.” 

“Whatever you want to do. It’s fine, I guess,” Finn said. 

“You think I’m enjoying it?” Puck asked. “It’s not like you don’t get people offering to set you up on dates and everything.” 

“Yeah, and you don’t?” Finn said. “And it’s not about that, anyway. It just isn’t fair.”

“Fair? What do you want me to say? Sorry that you couldn’t, I don’t know. Take me to the end of the year dinner last year?” Puck asked. “Sorry that I’m trying to keep an eye on next year?” 

“Not unfair for _me_ , dummy. Unfair for _you_. I get to just be Finn, but you’ve gotta keep being Straight Puck. Everybody who knows me, they more or less actually _know_ me, but you don’t get to have that!” Finn said. He put his hands on Puck’s cheeks and squished his face, leaning in to plant a kiss on Puck’s lips. 

Puck slid his laptop onto the table and turned towards Finn. “Yeah, and that’s why if it had to be just one of us, it needed to be you,” Puck said. “’Cause you hated it, and I don’t love it, but I can handle it for a little while longer.” 

“But I don’t want you to have to,” Finn said. 

“I know.” Puck moved closer to Finn. “After we’re both out and we have contracts, we can do, like, a series of PSAs on how teams can be more accepting or something. So maybe other people’ll have it a little better. And whatever team drafts us, we can get our teammates to do interviews with Sports Illustrated about how us fighting over disasters is actually fun to watch.” 

“Yeah. You’re right. I know you’re right. I just hate it sometimes, is all,” Finn said. He pulled Puck closer and pressed his face to the side of Puck’s neck, sighing. 

“I know. You’re nicer than most of the people that run football, buttface,” Puck said. “Love you.” 

“Love you, too. Let’s do the Sports Illustrated thing. We’ll show ’em how smart and funny we are.”

Puck grinned. “Okay. We can start practicing jokes after practice in the evenings.” 

 

Even in the winter, the weather in Orlando was still warm, and the sun shone down on the Orlando Citrus Bowl Stadium as the Louisville Cardinals faced the Oklahoma Sooners in the Russell Athletic Bowl. Finn heard the marching bands out on the field for half time while he sat right next to Puck on a bench in the locker, bouncing his right leg against the side of Puck’s left leg.

“Chill, buttface,” Puck said, nudging his shoulder against Finn’s. “We still have thirty minutes left to play, however long that’ll take.” 

“Yeah, but it’s close, and I really want to win,” Finn said. “It’s our last college game, Puck.”

“Yeah, which is why you gotta save the bouncing for the field, and afterwards,” Puck said. 

“I have extra energy!”

Puck nudged Finn’s shoulder again. “Show me afterwards, then.” 

Finn turned his head towards Puck and grinned, though before he could say anything, the coaches hustled them back out onto the field. The game stayed close until the fourth quarter, with the only scores for either team coming from field goals. With less than three minutes left on the clock and the Cardinals behind by three, they got the ball back and started moving down the field. 

When the clock read twenty-eight seconds, the ball was on the thirteen yard line, second down and seven yards to go, and Puck caught Finn’s eye and raised an eyebrow. Finn nodded, and after the ball snapped, dropped back two or three steps, scanning the field like he was planning to throw. He didn’t look at Puck, but he could feel Puck take the handoff, and if everything went how they had planned and practiced, Puck wasn’t looking at Finn or the ball, but the defensive line. 

After a few seconds, Finn turned to look to where Puck had surprised the Sooners, who thought there was going to be a pass, and a second after that, Puck crossed into the endzone, three steps ahead of the closest Sooner. Finn was there, too, just seconds behind the Sooners, in time for Puck to leap onto his back like always, with both of Finn’s fists up in the air in a V for their victory. 

Only another few seconds passed before the rest of the team was there too, all of them crowded around Finn and Puck, hugging them and patting them on the shoulders and whooping in celebration. Puck kept hanging from Finn’s back the whole time as Finn danced and jumped them around in a circle to give everybody their chance to grab ahold of some part of Puck to congratulate him. 

“We did it, buttface!” Puck yelled in Finn’s ear. Finn laughed and let the team continue to press in around them. After a few minutes, Coach McGee came up to them, squeezing through the team. 

“Got some reporters that want to do press with you boys!” he told Finn and Puck. 

“Yes sir!” Finn said. Puck stayed on Finn’s back and Finn followed Coach McGee across the field to the reporters waiting at the sideline. Finn swung Puck around another couple times, then Puck dropped from his back, both of them standing side-by-side with Finn’s arm draped over Puck’s shoulders. 

“That was quite the play at the end there!” one of the reporters said. “From the sidelines, we couldn’t even tell that either of you visually checked the handoff.” 

Puck laughed. “That’s ’cause we didn’t.” 

“Yeah, why would we?” Finn asked. “I knew where he was gonna be. He’s always right where he’s supposed to be.”

“Now wait. You’re saying that neither one of you looked at the other? Not even for a split second?” the same reporter asked. “The defenders on the field saw the same thing we did?” 

“If you saw what looked like me going up to block, not run,” Puck said. 

“Then, yeah, that’s what we’re saying,” Finn added. 

“That’s an amazing level of synchronicity!” another reporter said. 

Finn shrugged and grinned over at Puck. “Just normal gameplay for us,” he said. 

“So this caps off a successful senior season for both of you, with the draft coming up, and this very well could be the last game the two of you play together. Any thoughts about that?” 

Puck glared at the reporter as Finn shook his head. “No reason to think there isn’t an NFL team out there who wouldn’t want us as a package,” Finn said. “Louisville did, and I think if we perform well at the combine, the teams’ll see we’d be even better assets if they took us both.”

“Exactly,” Puck said as he grinned at Finn. “Good use of buzzwords.” 

“So you’d like to continue making history in more than one way?” the first reporter said. “Any thoughts on what your just-concluded season might mean to the gay community?” 

“Probably means that at least one of us can play football pretty well,” Finn said. 

Puck snickered and elbowed Finn in the side. “Honor!” he hissed. 

“I mean, it’s definitely an honor to get to represent the LGBT community like this,” Finn said. “I don’t feel like I’m any more special or important than any other player, but if this gives some other kids out there hope, then I think it’s really great to have the opportunity to be out and play ball.”

“Thank you for your time, boys, and good luck at the draft.” 

“Good save,” Puck said under his breath, tugging on Finn’s jersey to move them away from the reporters. 

“Thanks for reminding me,” Finn said. “On to bigger and better things now, right?”

Puck laughed. “Exactly. At least we don’t have to buy our own groceries just yet.”


	17. Chapter 17

Three weeks after Finn thought they’d be done for the season and that he’d be proposing to Puck, he and Puck are instead in different cities getting ready for their conferences’ championship games. This isn’t how Finn expected to spend his January. While of course it’s cool to be in the championships their first pro year, the additional weeks of separation have started to wear on both of them.

“I think I’m forgetting what you look like,” Finn complains to Puck over the phone. “I keep watching old TMZ clips to remind myself of how nice your butt looks.”

“So I’m just a vague blur with a great butt and a mohawk?” Puck asks. “That sounds about right. Oh, and good hands. Don’t forget my hands.” 

“ _Great_ hands. Too great, actually. Can’t you drop something so you can come home?” Finn asks, perhaps sounding a little whiny.

“Someone else can do that. I’m riding a three-season streak without a fumble now,” Puck says. “Maybe Cam’ll throw an interception. Or the Cardinals will just score more points, and everyone can blame the defense.” 

“Maybe the stadium will develop a sinkhole and they’ll have to play the game on another night, so I can watch you play.”

“If I were in Florida, I’d think that was actually possible. You fly out tomorrow afternoon or not until after dinner?” Puck asks. 

“After dinner,” Finn says. “Gives me time to finish the laundry. We’re getting a little behind.”

“We’re not doing any laundry for a week when I finally get home. Deal?” Puck says. 

“Deal. Anyway, my plan was to go right back to that day in bed, a week not leaving the house thing,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, that sounds about right. I’ll go on Amazon tomorrow while you’re flying and order anything we’ll need for that week.” Puck sighs. “I’m tired and sore and I miss you.” 

“Same. I’m allowed to be tired of football, right? Because I’m seriously tired of football right now.”

“Yeah, I think that’s allowed. I’m tired of the fucking commentators, too.” 

“Seriously!” Finn says. “I swear to God, if Reg makes one more veiled comment about me looking at dicks, I’m gonna punch him in his.”

“I think the way they’re tripping over each other to ignore every gay fan JJ Watt’s ever had is almost comical, though,” Puck says. “They’d really piss themselves if they knew about the gay rumors.” 

“They probably piss themselves every time they see a rainbow,” Finn says. 

“I’m buying a rainbow flashlight tomorrow morning and getting it shipped same-day,” Puck announces. “I’ll turn it on in the middle of the game Sunday.” 

“That your plan for coming out? Have them introduce you as you walk out in a rainbow?” 

“Hey, that could work. I could throw some— what would they think was really gay? Glitter? I could throw some glitter, too.” Puck yawns. “Glitter and rainbows, I’m going to have weird dreams now.” 

“Glitter cannons, maybe,” Finn says. “You thinking about falling asleep?”

“I like falling asleep while you’re still talking. Even if sometimes I wake up and think you’re here for a split second.” 

“Yeah. Sorry, buttface. Won’t be too long now. Just gotta throw that game on Sunday and we’re in the clear,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “Okay. Love you, squishybutt.” 

“Love you, too, squishyface. Have good glittery rainbow dreams, okay?”

“Mmm.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says softly. “Sweet dreams, buttface. We’re almost there.”

Flying out to Houston for the conference championship feels weird. Finn had never expected to make it this far, and while what he really wants is for it to be over so he can have a nice long chunk of time off with Puck—and so Puck can finally come out, if he’s sure he’s ready—there’s also this additional pressure to continue to perform well, because the entire LGBT community is counting on him to not screw this up. A gay quarterback going to the Super Bowl would be no small feat. Finn can’t even let himself think about the idea of _winning_ a Super Bowl, not his rookie season.

As Finn walks out on the field, he sends Puck good thoughts for a good game, and tries not to cross his fingers that both their teams lose. If the outcome of the game were determined only by the stats accrued by one half of one team, the Texans would have a good chance of winning. By the end of the first quarter, Finn’s already evaded one serious attempt to sack him by JJ Watt, and it’s probably good Puck wasn’t watching that. The Texans offense doesn’t get any points on the board, though, and at the half, the score is 10–0 in the Browns favor. 

Finn uses the few free minutes at the half to check the Panthers score, which is also 10–0, Panthers. Because Finn wants Puck to do well, even if it means yet another two weeks away from home, he sends him some good thoughts before heading back out to play the second half. 

The Texans get a single touchdown in the third quarter, but Finn and the Browns answer that with another touchdown – a twelve-yard pass from Finn to Mayle, early in the fourth quarter. That’s the last change in the score for the game, each team’s defense making the other team fight for every yard and every first down. The Texans have the ball at the end of the game, still trying to make a play when the clock runs to zero and the scoreboard reads 17–7. 

Everybody’s celebrating and jumping around, but Finn mostly feels shell-shocked and wants to go back to the locker room to check the Panthers score. Eventually he’s able to make his way back there, and the final score for the Panthers game is 24–14. Finn feels briefly excited for Puck before all the pieces come together and he realizes what that means.

They’re going to the Super Bowl. Both of them. Both teams. They’re playing _against_ each other in the Super Bowl, and Finn’s just not sure what to do with that information. 

 

The fact that either one of them is going to the Super Bowl is unreal enough, but the idea of playing against each other in it is too much for Puck to really try to process, and Finn must feel more or less the same way. From the time Puck gets home on Monday evening through when he flies out Wednesday morning, the only time they really mention anything to do with football is when they spend half an hour making fun of Reg and Blake and the rest of the ESPN dickwad commentators. 

Puck sort of thought that things would feel different in the locker room, since they’re not just getting ready for the next game, they’re getting ready for the Super Bowl, but overall, things don’t seem to change that much. There’s a little bit of a feeling like Puck’s almost-out with some of the players, but no one brings it up to him directly. 

Until, that is, they’re all standing around, waiting for the coaching staff for a team meeting on Friday morning, which Puck figures will mostly be about flying to Minneapolis on Sunday morning and how the week will go once they get there. 

One of the defensive players whose name Puck honestly doesn’t remember stops and turns to him as everyone’s talking quietly. “So you’re going to be playing against your best friend for the first time, huh?” he asks Puck, and Puck starts to nod before he stops. Most of the team is watching him, and it’s as good a time as any. 

“No,” Puck says finally, shaking his head back and forth. “Boyfriend, actually.” 

There’s a little bit of a hush that spreads out around the room, just like a stone in a pond, and there’s definitely some surprised looks. 

“Your— wait,” Miller says. “You’re the boyfriend?” 

Puck laughs a little. “Yeah. I’m the guy in the airport.” 

“You own a Browns hat?” Cam asks, sounding almost betrayed. 

“I own a Browns hat. I own more than one piece of Browns gear, actually,” Puck admits. 

“Boyfriend’s one thing, Browns gear is another,” Reaves says with a laugh, and everyone is still laughing when the coaching staff walks in. 

“What’s the joke?” Coach Rivera asks as he walks in. 

“It’s just that one of us owns a lot of Browns gear, sir,” Norwell answers. 

“Oh? And that’s funny?” Coach asks, looking even more confused. 

Norwell nods. “It is when you know the reason.”

“And is anyone going to enlighten me and the rest of your coaching staff what that reason is?” 

No one says anything, but they all look at Puck sideways, and he shakes his head ruefully. “It’s been pretty fun messing with TMZ whenever I go visit my boyfriend,” he finally says. 

Puck has to give Coach Rivera and the rest of the coaches some credit, because no one says anything right away, but they don’t look over the top surprised either. “Well,” Rivera finally says. “Is that going to be a problem for you?” 

“It’s not like we’ll both be on the field at the same time, sir,” Puck says as he shakes his head. 

“We’ll chat after the meeting,” Rivera says, and Puck nods, managing not to wince. The rest of the meeting is exactly what Puck expected, a bunch of travel arrangements and schedules for the week in Minneapolis, and after it’s over, Puck walks up to the coaching staff. 

“Is this something the rest of the team’s known?” Rivera asks, and after Puck shakes his head, he continues. “Is it something that’s going to be public knowledge before the game next week?” 

“Not before the game, no,” Puck says. 

“But after?” 

Puck shrugs. “Keeping a secret’s pretty tiring on top of the separation.”

Rivera nods a few times, then looks at the rest of the coaching staff. “Any of the rest of you have any questions?” 

“Yeah, I do,” the defensive coordinator says. “How do we know you’ve not been giving Hudson any information about our plays?” 

“How do you know anyone on the team isn’t giving their old college buddies information on the plays?” Puck says, barely keeping himself from rolling his eyes. “Anyway, Finn can watch film of our games the same as any other team or player can.” 

“And we’re not going to be subjected to any PDA as the game starts?” one of the strength and conditioning coaches asks. 

“There’s usually not any PDA from anyone at the beginning of a game. No reason to put any restrictions on us that you wouldn’t put on any other players, though,” Puck says. 

“Hmph,” the guy says, which tells Puck that he’d probably like some restrictions, but he doesn’t say anything else, and no one seems to have any questions, so Puck escapes to go start practice. 

By the time he leaves the practice facility that afternoon, the sky already dark, he’s been asked a few more questions by the other players, gotten heckled a few times, and had one guy actually ask him if Puck thought it was fair he’d showered in the locker room with everyone else when they didn’t know about him. 

Puck laughs to himself as he thinks about his answer: no, it probably wasn’t fair, because he made the rest of them look bad, but other than that, sure it was. He checks the time on his phone and then calls Finn as he’s walking back to the hotel. 

“Hey,” Finn says as soon as he answers. “How’s my favorite buttface archenemy doing?”

“Yeah, about that, no one on the Panthers is going to believe that,” Puck says. “The archenemy thing, I mean.” 

“No?” Finn asks, then is quiet for a few beats. “Wait. You told them?”

“Yeah. All of ’em. Coaches, too,” Puck says. “Someone made a comment about playing against my best friend, and I was like… not actually accurate.” 

“Well, it’s not. I mean, I’m your best friend _too_ , but not just your best friend. You feel okay about it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. A couple of people were douches about it, but three or four out of seventy or so’s not bad, I figure,” Puck says. “No one asked me if I was the top or bottom at least. So far.” 

“What are you gonna tell them if they ask?” Finn asks, sounding amused.

“I was going to tell them sorry, we’re monogamous, but that I could give them some dating hints.” 

Finn laughs loudly at that. “Good answer.”

“It’d at least shut them up for a few minutes. Hey, what time does your flight land in Minneapolis on Sunday?” 

“1:45. You gonna meet me at baggage claim?”

“You’ll have to meet me, we’re 2:05,” Puck says. “Probably some kind of photo-op reason but I’ll take it.” 

“I’ll be there. We’ll have to make sure to get word to Pete,” Finn says. 

Puck laughs. “Exactly.” 

Pete isn’t at the Minneapolis airport when they land on Sunday afternoon, but when Puck walks through the lobby at the downtown Hilton that evening, he spots Pete in the lounge off the lobby, sitting at the bar, and Puck makes a quick detour to slide into the seat next to Pete. 

Pete startles. “Oh! Hello! You’re Noah Puckerman, with the Panthers.”

“And you’re Pete,” Puck says. “Never have caught your last name.” 

“Ogden,” Pete says, offering his hand to Puck. 

“Pete Ogden with TMZ,” Puck says as he shakes Pete’s hand. “I’m almost hurt.” 

“It’s nothing we wouldn’t do to any interesting public figure,” Pete says apologetically. 

“Really pretty damn boring, actually,” Puck says. “But here’s the thing. I’m going to get on the elevator and go up to the fifth floor. And I’m going to do that all week, but if we don’t see anything about it? Guess who gets to talk to us a week from tomorrow.” The Browns are on the fifth floor, and everyone there knows it’s the Browns on five, six, and seven, and the Panthers on nine, ten, and eleven. 

Pete’s eyes widen. “So, it _is_ you, then. I thought so, but the guys back at TMZ didn’t believe it.”

“Not everyone can pull off the pompom hat look as well as I can,” Puck says with a shrug. “That sound like a good deal, though?” 

“Sounds like a great deal to me,” Pete says. He holds out his hand again for Puck to shake, and Puck does with a nod. “Hope you both play a great game.”

Puck laughs a little. “Yeah. Thanks.” He slides back off the stool with another nod, heading for the elevator. Now all he has to do is sneak past the hired guards, but after a season of TMZ, that’s actually going to be pretty easy. 

Every single guard is easy to fool all week, because people in Minneapolis don’t keep up with Carolina Panthers football. All Puck has to do is cover the mohawk with a Browns hat, and the guards wave him on through to Finn’s room. By mid-week, most of Puck’s stuff has migrated to the fifth floor, and the staff on both teams is either oblivious or turning a blind eye. Possibly, Puck admits, a little of both. 

On Saturday night, everyone’s back in their rooms relatively early, most of them sneaking in takeout, and Puck gets in even easier, since he’s clearly not contraband Chinese food. “Turn on the TV!” Puck says as soon as they’re in the room. “It’s our big debut.” 

Finn flicks the television on and turns to ESPN just in time for them to see big letters declaring ‘SUPERBOWL LII: CIVIL WAR’ flash across the screen, along with individual pictures of both Finn and Puck in their current teams’ gear. 

“Oh my God,” Finn says. “They made a special about us?”

“Not just us, it’s like we’re superheroes or something,” Puck says, closing the curtains and pulling off his sweatshirt. “An entire special about us, with no input from either of us.” 

“I bet we can thank the whole Caulfield Agency for that one,” Finn says. 

“Yeah, and ESPN really should thank them, too,” Puck says. “They wouldn’t have liked any honest answers.” He kicks off his jeans and climbs under the covers. “Come on.” 

Finn slides under the covers with him, pulling Puck against his chest. “Aww, those are cute pictures of you, though. That’s before I met you.”

“Are you sure? Sometimes I’m pretty sure our moms are lying and we just always knew each other.” 

“I’d remember you with your hair still long like that,” Finn says. 

“ _I_ don’t remember me like that.” Puck wiggles a little and leans his head on Finn’s shoulder. “I could grow my hair out in the off-season so they could add more pictures next year.” 

“That would be cute. You should so do that.”

“Then I’ll shave the mohawk back when training camp starts,” Puck says. ESPN starts talking about their years playing football, and most of the information is fairly accurate. They have a bizarre one-minute segment where some people try to decide why Finn came out at all and why he did when he did, but other than that, it’s pretty just-the-facts until the very end. 

“Once it became apparent that the two would play against each other for the first time in their lives, ESPN reached out to them as well as their teams for comment. We tried again after rumors began to surface that the two of them are now at odds, barely speaking to each other or perhaps not speaking to each other at all in the face of football’s biggest game. Once again, however, we could not get any comment, not even from unnamed sources within their teams.” The screen shows one of the former football player ESPN employees, standing next to a screen and shaking his head. 

“That’d be a real shame,” he says. “To let a single game cause a rift in a friendship like this.” 

“Aw man, we need to do something about that rift!” Finn says. “You’d better get closer or something.”

“It’s not totally inaccurate. We’ve had a few hours pass this week with us barely speaking,” Puck points out. 

“Those were the worst hours, though. I hated those hours!”

“Really?” Puck asks. “’Cause I meant the hours our mouths were doing other things.” 

“Oh. Then those were the best hours,” Finn says. “Sorry.”

Puck laughs as the ESPN guys wrap up the special with another sad shake of the head and a final display of SUPER BOWL LII: CIVIL WAR. “I’m pretty sure we could work on that nonexistent rift anyway. Good karma or something, right? You can ask Mayle tomorrow.” 

“Oh, Mayle moved on from eastern philosophy. He’s into something called Rolfing now,” Finn says. 

“That sounds like something you do with a Muppet,” Puck says, shaking his head. 

“I think it’s some kind of massage thing, maybe.”

“Hmm.” Puck stretches and rolls a little. “I could give you a massage.” 

“You think that would cure our rift?” Finn asks. 

Puck shrugs and grins. “Probably a good start.” 

 

They wake up on Sunday morning with both their phones pinging with the same text from their agent. _Both teams will leave the hotel at the same time & the teams want the two of you to walk out together. Lots of overnight rumors from ESPN._

“We’re so popular,” Puck says, fiddling with the in-room coffeemaker. 

“I can’t believe I have to act like I like you,” Finn complains. “You’re my nemesis. My _rival_.”

Puck snorts. “Your morning waker-upper.” 

“Exactly. My archenemy,” Finn says, sitting up and stretching as he enjoys his morning ogling of Puck’s butt. 

“You could tell the press you’re just jealous of my guns. Then they’d be super-confused,” Puck says. He pours two cups of coffee and brings one over to Finn, sitting down beside him on the bed. 

“I’m just gonna tell them that I hate you because you’re a morning person.”

“There’s no lie in that. You just like me _more_ than you hate me, so it balances out,” Puck says with a shrug. 

“That’s true,” Finn says, sipping his coffee. “So, we all walk out together. You think the coaches will be down for us holding hands?”

“Coaches probably don’t care. Pete might, though. I maybe told him we’d give him an exclusive if he didn’t take any pictures this week.” 

“Did you talk to Caulfield about that? You know he doesn’t like it when we make decisions like that without, you know, notifying him a little,” Finn says

“I sent him a text. Perfectly acceptable, right?” Puck says with a small grin. “Anyway, Pete was down in the lounge the first night, so it seemed like a good idea to head him off. Meant to tell you, but I got distracted as soon as I got up here.” 

“Oops. Sorry for being distracting.”

“No you aren’t,” Puck says cheerfully. “And I didn’t really mind being distracted, either.” 

“Good,” Finn says, continuing to drink his coffee. “Looks like we’re all happy with this turn of events. Now we just have to decide if we’ll still like each other after the game tonight. I might be so jealous that it ruins our… whatever it was they were calling it on that stupid ESPN show.”

Puck laughs. “Guess that means you’d better go out there and try to win, then.” 

“Then you’ll just be mad at _me_. Do you think we can convince everybody that a tie is the perfect solution to their PR problems?” Finn asks. 

“Nah. We’ll just give them a few weeks to gnash their teeth or whatever, then get Caulfield to convince them a trade’s the actual perfect solution,” Puck says. “Hard to be mad about winning if we’re on the same team, blah blah blah.” 

“True. That’s a perfectly good solution,” Finn agrees. 

Puck raises his styrofoam coffee cup a little. “Here’s to off-season trades.” 

Finn touches his cup to Puck’s. “You’ll look good in orange.”

“As good as we both do out of it.” 

Actually getting out of the hotel is a chaotic mess, with lots of good-natured smack talking between the teams, and players from both teams insisting that when they all come back to the hotel after the game, _they’ll_ be the Super Bowl champions. Finn makes eye contact with Puck and grins at him as they’re both herded onto their team’s buses. Finn puts his hand into his pocket to make sure the chain he sneaked into it at the hotel is still there. 

The buses pass by the huge tailgate party happening outside the stadium. Finn sees significantly more brown and orange than he does Panther blue and black, but that’s probably due to Minneapolis being closer to Cleveland than to Charlotte. The noise and the sheer number of people is a little overwhelming. It’s a relief when the buses finally drive under the stadium to let the players off. Finn finds Puck in the stream of Panthers exiting the bus and gives him another smile before each team is directed towards their locker rooms.

Once they’re in the locker room, Finn pulls the chain out of his pocket and fastens it around his neck, tucking it into his undershirt. The only person who seems to notice is Mayle, who raises an eyebrow.

“Yep,” Finn says. 

Mayle laughs. “This really is a damn movie-of-the-week. I like it.” 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Me, too.”

The locker room is rowdier than usual, everybody pumping themselves up for the game. Finn hears more smack-talking, including at least one discussion about each other’s mamas, a lot of back patting and butt slapping, and the occasional crash against a locker as a few of the guys on second string practice ‘blocks’ on each other. Eventually, though, it’s actually game time, and they exit the locker room into a wall of noise and color, with bright lights flashing everywhere. 

The national anthem and all the talking blurs together. Finally, the coin toss happens. The Browns win the toss, but they defer, so the Panthers offense heads out onto the field after receiving the kick-off. Puck isn’t on the field for the first five plays of the drive, then he is for three plays in the later half, getting a carry on one play. The Panthers get a field goal at the end of the nearly-eight-minute drive, and a minute later, Finn and the Browns are on the field. 

Their drive ends up lasting nine minutes, the Panthers defense not easily giving up yardage, but when they’re third and goal on the six, Finn connects on a slant with Mayle, and the Browns are up, 7–3. The next Panthers drive is short and doesn’t result in any points, but neither does the Browns’ next possession. Finn gets them almost within field goal position, and while they attempt it, the kick goes just wide. 

With three minutes left on the clock, the Panthers offense goes back onto the field, and on the third play, Puck goes in. He has a four yard carry, which is enough for the Panthers to move the chains, and Puck’s off the field again for the next few plays. 

The Panthers offense isn’t doing well with stopping the clock as they advance down the field, though, so even when Puck has another nice gain, it’s wasted as time on the first half expires and the score still stands at 7–3. There’s just enough time before the halftime show for Finn to wave across the field at Puck, who bounces up and down on his toes twice as he waves. The lights cut out and Taylor Swift’s intro music starts for the halftime show. Her performance is pretty good—not as flashy and over-the-top as some Finn’s watched, but she hits all her notes and seems to be having fun up there—and Finn plays with the chain around his neck while he listens to her. Only half a game left. 

The third quarter starts out strong for both teams. Finn and the Browns move quickly down the field when they receive the kickoff, scoring another field goal and making the score 13–3. When the Panthers get the ball, they move pretty quickly down the field, too, including one twelve-yard gain for Puck, and they score a touchdown, making things a lot closer at 13–10. 

During the next drive, Finn hands the ball off cleanly to Cromwell, but after a gain of six or seven yards, the Panthers defense hits him at just the right angle, and he fumbles. One of the Panthers’ defensive ends scoops it up and runs it almost all the way back down the field. After Cam and the rest of the offense is on the field for just a few plays, the score is 17–13, in favor of the Panthers for the first time all game as the third quarter ends. 

Coach Pettine pulls Finn aside as the offense starts to head onto the field. “Just play your best,” he says. “Slow and steady. We only have to score once more. Take ten minutes if you need to.” 

Two plays, and they have a first down again. Another two plays, another first down, down the field slowly but surely, mostly on short-yardage passes, sometimes with four to six yard gains on rushing plays. When the Browns are down on the thirty, Finn connects on a post route for a fifteen yard gain, and the play after makes it second down and four, on the nine yard line. 

They make the first down, and then it’s first and goal, followed by second and goal, and then Cromwell redeems himself for his earlier fumble by running it into the endzone and putting the Browns on top again, 20–17, with only five minutes left to play. Carolina’s next drive is three and done, then Cleveland does the same, and the Panthers send out their offense again with around two and a half minutes left to play. 

Puck goes out on the third play, getting them the first down, but on the next play, Cam gets sacked, making the Panthers on second down and sixteen. 

Somehow they come back from that and make the first down, but that eats up even more time on the clock, and two plays later, Cam hands it off to Wegner, who manages to fake ball control until around the line of scrimmage, where he either drops the ball and then gets hit, or gets hit and then drops the ball. The Browns recover and the clock says 1:25. 

“Too much time to just take a knee,” Coach Pettine says. “Run the clock down. No turnovers.” He doesn’t give Finn time to respond, gesturing for the offense to get out on the field. 

Finn calls for a running play, then a second one, and no one goes near the sidelines as they run. By the time they’ve gotten two first downs, the clock is finally down enough that they can take a knee and wait for it to read zero. It’s not the most glorious way to end a Super Bowl, and no part of the game produced the kind of clips that get played over and over on the sports networks, but the game is over, the Browns won, and it’s finally time.

Finn’s barely made it back up off his knee when Puck leaps on his back from behind, yelling in Finn’s ear. “Guess what?” 

“What?” Finn shouts back.

“Season’s over!” 

“Yeah it is!” Finn agrees. He swings Puck around in a circle, players from both teams milling all around them and confetti flying through the air. After they’ve made a full rotation, though, Finn drops Puck back down onto his feet and turns around to face him, resting his forehead against Puck’s. “So, you ready?”

“We’re staying home for a week starting Tuesday, right?” Puck says as he nods. 

“Right,” Finn agrees, then he takes a knee again in front of Puck. 

“I don’t know anything, it’s 2018,” Puck says with a grin. 

Finn reaches into his jersey and pulls out the chain so Puck can see the ring it’s looped through. Finn unhooks the chain and removes the ring, letting the chain drop to the ground as he holds the ring out. “So, do you want to marry me or what?”

“Yeah, I want to marry you, squishybutt,” Puck says. 

“Yeah?” Finn asks, putting the ring onto Puck’s finger. 

“Yeah. Come back up here and kiss me already.” 

Finn stands up, putting his arms around Puck as they kiss. The confetti falls all around them and the roar of the crowd is nearly deafening, but Finn and Puck together, right there, is the only part of it that really matters. 

 

Five and a half weeks after the Super Bowl, Puck and Finn are back in Cleveland after a week in Orlando and another week in northern California, and Puck ends the call on his phone as he picks up the bags from Target and heads up to their apartment. 

Once he locks the door behind him and puts the bags down in the kitchen, Puck drops onto the couch next to Finn. He’s reading _Summer of the Tsunami_ that he picked up at SFO, and Puck grins to himself. 

“So you know how I was saying that I’d grow my hair out and shave the mohawk back before the season started?” Puck says. Finn nods without saying anything. “I think I should do a social media thing. Have people vote on whether I should do it at the start of training camp, or before the first preseason game, or just before the first regular season game.” He pauses. “You know, ’cause Browns fans like to be involved in weird stuff.” 

“Uh huh. I like the mohawk,” Finn says without looking up from his book. 

“Did you even hear what I just said?” Puck asks. “Replay that last sentence in your mind.” 

“Mmhmm, mohaw— wait.” Finn puts down the book. “Browns fans. You said _Browns_ fans, right? Browns as in _the_ Browns as in the _Cleveland_ Browns? Those Browns?”

“You know trades started yesterday. Turns out the Panthers don’t want to look like the big, mean team keeping us apart,” Puck says. “Caulfield called when I was on my way back. They’ll announce it in about thirty minutes, probably.” 

“You staying in Cleveland?” Finn asks, standing up and grabbing Puck’s hands. “You’re staying? You don’t have to leave again?”

Puck grins. “I don’t have to go anywhere.” 

“That’s all I ever wanted,” Finn says. 

“You can say that ’cause you already got a Super Bowl ring,” Puck says as he laughs. 

“That’s not the ring I care about, and you know it,” Finn says. “All I ever really wanted was you and playing football with you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Puck says. “And now you get both. Love you, buttface.” 

“Love you, too, buttface.”

“Think you can put your disaster book down long enough to celebrate?” Puck asks. 

Finn grins. “What disaster book? I don’t remember any disaster book.”

“Perfect.”


End file.
